This semester, Itawamba Community College has several duel-enrolled classes on high school campuses. I don’t want to debate whether or not dual-enrollment is good or evil, but this week I’ve found myself examining my knowledge of dual-enrolled students. My exploration is prompted by one of my WC supervisors teaching a dual-enrolled class at a local high school. She seemed genuinely happy to agree to help with this class, but I found myself wondering what her fears might be about a class full of dual-enrolled students. I was afraid that she would hit walls with content. I was afraid that she would have that one student who tries to ruin the whole class for everyone. I was afraid that dealing with a foreign administration would cause friction and result in bad feelings. I was afraid that parent involvement could overshadow the experience for my supervisor and for the students. So far, none of these disastrous scenarios has happened. After the first class, my supervisor seemed pleased and excited. She said that her students were “super giggly and super smart.” This description sounds like one of the reasons I want to teach college students and come back to class every semester. I think that’s a good sign.

My experiences with dual-enrolled students have been nothing but pleasant. What could have been the scariest and potentially most miserable scenario—brothers who were home-schooled in rural Mississippi because of the health of one brother and who dual-enrolled their senior years of the high school curriculum—gave me one of the best consultants I’ve had the pleasure to supervise in the writing center. Furthermore, because he was dual-enrolled, I got him for two years before he transferred to MSU. I can only get consultants for two years if they dual-enroll, take their first year writing courses in the summer, or bum around for an extra year. My consultant wasn’t the only brother I had the pleasure of knowing well. His brother dual-enrolled in my Comp. 1 course and I found in him a very different person, but one no less pleasant, intelligent, or rewarding to know. I don’t know that anyone else in the class knew he was dual-enrolled unless he told someone.

This semester I have the pleasure of meeting another dual-enrolled student who is taking my Comp. 1 course and a College Algebra course. In fact, I’ve also met his parents. They were friendly, interested, and, of course, concerned, but not at all scary. I don’t know why I always expect high school students’ parents to be scary. From my observations, this student plans to work harder in my class than many of my college-aged students might consider an option. Between his classes he finds a spot in the writing center and works, and when he hits a wall, he asks good questions. How could I not be pleased??

So far, my experiences have all been rewarding in positive ways. I’ve formed a very good opinion of dual-enrolled students and of this experiment to give motivated and intelligent students the opportunity to receive credit for both high school and college. Others will have to form their own opinions based on their own experiences, but I sincerely hope that their experiences are as positive as mine have been.

This week I’ve been reminded of why I love what I do. I talk to students all day about their struggles with writing. This week, I talked to a high school student who’s old enough to be a sophomore but is still categorized as a freshman. With his creativity and quiet curiosity, this kid has stolen the hearts of my family and my in-laws. With his determination and running talent he’s made the high school sports column of the local paper numerous times, even though he’s been running for only one year. Right now, he’s probably the second fastest kid in the state. Unfortunately, this fellow is also severely dyslexic, and too many folks have written him off. His running was in jeopardy this year because of his low grades, but he and I are working now to make sure he doesn’t have to worry about that again. Yesterday, he told me that biology, not English, was his biggest obstacle of the day, so I—an English teacher—proceeded to help him with chemistry, which apparently is now also taught in biology. Together we managed to work out some complicated compounds, and by the end of his worksheet, we both felt like we’d conquered chemistry. My first thought for this post was of how starved some of our students are for us just to answer their questions. This fellow’s parents are absent, and his extended family is incapable of helping him academically, though they are very supportive of him receiving help. He won’t ask questions in his classes because he’s embarrassed by his struggles to understand. Earlier this week, he asked me how to spell “dirt,” a question he’d never ask his classroom teacher. One-on-one, however, he has more questions outside of his homework than we can answer in an hour. My second thought was of the connectivity of the organizations behind the scenes in this fellow’s life. He’s a high school student whose cross country coach has him working with a community college writing center director who wants to send him to a university where he can run competitively and make it to the Olympic trials. He’s good enough to make the cut by the time he’s running in college. I wanted to emphasize the importance of our goal for this symposium of working together to prepare our students. We’re all on the same team when we’re helping this fellow and other students like him succeed with their goals. My final thought was of how much I want my WC consultants to feel the struggle and the triumph when they work with students that my high school runner and I felt when we conquered chemistry together.