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On Course with Zazou by Zazou Hoffman |
School is finally over! I finished my last final at Santa Monica High School and I will leave in two days for the Lake Placid Horse Show in New York, where I will meet up with my trainers Missy Clark and John Brennan. But academics are still much on my mind as I strive to maintain success both in school and in the saddle. I decided to devote more time to competing and showing on the East Coast with Missy and John. I hope that the continuity of staying east for the medal finals and all of the Winter Equestrian Festival in Florida will allow me to maximize the unusual opportunity to train with Missy and John. That means missing school here in California and I have been jumping through many hoops to devise a plan to compensate for that. Getting approval from my high school required several meetings in which the strategies I learned in Lessons in Persuasive Speaking were put to use. One of my school’s principals, a traditionalist to put it mildly, was not convinced. My main school principal, Dr. Pedroza, a forward thinking man, took my GPA (4.0 +), my time management skills, and my riding accomplishments into consideration and gave his approval in less than 24 hours. In my situation the safety net is the Advanced Placement Program. Each subject has a set curriculum and it culminates in the AP Test in the spring. So there is no room for deviation or mediocrity in the course material. It is within the last year that the State of California has decided to radically change their approach to online or distance learning programs. This has partially come about because of the popularity of home schooling, as well as advances in wireless technology, software and the Internet. Accessibility to the virtual classroom is available to students throughout the world. Harvard University videotapes class lectures and an absent student may see it online. This is not to say that every distance learning program is a good one. There are many sketchy and expensive programs that are a waste of time. I am lucky that the University of California has set very high standards for the California Public High School system. The UC Irvine and Stanford programs meet their standards. A Test Case I am fully aware that I will have to be very disciplined and that I am a human guinea pig of sorts. If this program works for me I will be the first one to encourage other riders to consider it. The current show schedules seem to ignore the fact that most Junior riders attend school: Classes often start mid-week. The upshot is that an academically-oriented rider has a horrible choice to make: Compromise their chances to qualify for year-end finals or incur their schoolteacher’s wrath by missing class. Believe me, after years of choosing option number two, I can tell you that it is very stressful. Option number one is not a lot of fun either. It cost me a lot of extra money to qualify for the USEF Talent Search Final in Gladstone, NJ because I skipped some shows and left it to the last minute. So what is the solution? It is unlikely that the USEF or the show managers are suddenly going to say that the education of junior competitors comes first. But USHJA and USEF could at least offer some guidance. They could list the distance learning and online programs that meet the high standards for acceptance to a competitive Ivy League or UC school on their websites. (See the links below for info on the UC Davis, Stanford and UC Irvine programs.) Junior riders and their parents have a multitude of hoops to jump through. Figuring out how to get a good education should not be one of them. By the way, these online and distance classes are not free. The cost for me for the whole year will be around $6,000, which includes textbooks and educational DVDs. The Sullivan Canyon Preservation Society and Mea Argentieri helped tremendously by awarding me the MEA Equestrian Scholarship, which will defray some of my expenses. • UC Davis: http://extension.ucdavis.edu
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