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HARVARD COLLEGE
Extracurricular Education
 
Improving Education Outcomes by SupportingExperiential Learning
Jason J. Wong5/14/2009
Contents
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 2Fulfilling Schooling Objectives: Weaknesses and Potential Solutions ................................................ 3Extracurricular Activities and Types of Schooling ............................................................................... 4Student Interviews .............................................................................................................................. 7Methodology and Explanation ....................................................................................................... 7Interviewee Backgrounds ................................................................
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 Results ............................................................................................................................................. 8Analysis ........................................................................................................................................... 9Extracurricular, Experiential Learning and Classroom Learning ....................................................... 10Extracurricular Involvement and Purposes of Schooling .................................................................. 11Bibliography ...................................................................................................................................... 13
 
Wong, JasonPage 2 of 15
Introduction
On a typical school day, the American education system educates almost 49million students in approximately 100,000 public K-12 schools.
1
Including private schools,the American education system comprises of almost 55 million students. The publiceducation system is perhaps the most direct way that the government influences the livesof the vast majority of its citizens. In terms of social services, only Social Security andMedicare come close to the level of interaction with individuals that schools have. Formany students, this system is failing. In some states, the high school graduation ratehovers around 60%
—
or worse.
2
According to a survey administered by
Education Next 
in2008, published by the Hoover Institute and the Program on Education Policy andGovernance at Harvard University, confidence in public schools is declining (West, 2008).The great question challenging American society today involves analyzing what methodsschool teachers, administrators, and policymakers can utilize to increase and equalizelearning outcomes from students of all economic and sociological backgrounds.Current education reform focuses on the idea that a high quality, transparent, andstandardized school curriculum can improve educational outcomes and decrease theachievement gap between urban and suburban schools. The question that primarilyconcerns this paper, however, is whether or not high test scores on standardized tests areenough to indicate that students are graduating with the tools to thrive in modern society.If all schools achieve equally high test scores, will students in poor urban areas achieveeducational parity with their suburban peers? This paper suggests that high test scores
aren’t enough. In particular, students from more advantaged backgrounds tend to have
access to higher quality extracurricular activities than students in poor urbancommunities have access to. Extracurricular activities, I argue, offer an opportunity forstudents to develop skills, abilities, and social networks that supplement their educationwithin the classroom setting. Equalizing access to high quality extracurricular learning isan important component to reducing the achievement gap, and to supplement curricularlearning in the classroom in important ways that are relevant to a 21
st
century modernsociety.Extracurricular activities, broadly defined, are organized activities that take placeoutside of the classroom setting. They typically include organizational supports orstructure in physical and psychological safety, supportive relationships, opportunities tobelong, positive social norms, support for efficacy and mattering, opportunities for skillbuilding, and the integration of family, school, and community efforts (Eccles & Gootman,2002). Specific examples of after-school extracurricular activities include: sports activities,theater and other artistic productions, community service activities, competitive events(such as debate, mock trial, forensics, etc.), scientific research, music rehearsal, and awide variety of other activities. For an issue that effects a large proportion of the studentpopulation, which Mahoney et al. reported at approximately 75% for 14-year-olds
1
 http://www.localschooldirectory.com/ 
2
 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/education/20graduation.html 
 
Wong, JasonPage 3 of 15(Mahoney & Bergman, 2002), surprisingly little research has been conducted on theeffects of extracurricular activity and adolescent development, and how to improveextracurricular practices (Feldman & Matjasko, 2005) and (Fredricks & Eccles, 2006).
Fulfilling Schooling Objectives: Weaknesses and Potential Solutions
Objectives of schooling have evolved throughout time and differed according todifferent political beliefs and ideologies. During the Great Depression, George Countswrote about the idea of schools serving as a means of social justice. He wrote that themajor objective for schools must be to educate students about how to change society tobecome more just (Counts, 1932). Three decades later, Richard Hofstadter wrote abouthow qualities of intelligence different with qualities of intellect, and that it is the goal of 
schools (or that it should be the goal of schools) to develop their students’ intellect.Whereas intelligence “seeks to grasp, manipulate, re
-order, adjust, intellect examines,
ponders, wonders, theorizes, criticizes, imagines.”
(Hofstadter, 1963, p. 25) Education forHofstadter, then, becomes a means and an end unto itself, with economic and socialbenefits being a secondary concern. Paulo Freire went further, and wrote abouteducation as a form of liberation (Freire, 1970). Freire writes that the ideal of education
is that “the teacher
-student and the students-teachers reflect simultaneously onthemselves and the world without dichotomizing this reflection from action, and thus
establish an authentic form of thought and action.”
(Freire, 1970, p. 71) Simply put, in
Freire’s view, a great education transcends power relationships and allows the world to
be analyzed and thought about without deceit. People such as William Galston believethat schools should teach citizenship and educate students on how to flourish in ademocratic state (Galston, 1989). Recently, Norton Grubb and Marvin Lazerson havewritten about the economic purposes of schooling, and try to balance the ideas of vocational education for economic benefit, and the need for a minimum standard forknowledge that all individuals should obtain (Grubb & Lazerson, 2004).Most of our educational objectives are not mutually exclusive, and many aremutually supportive. For example, a more equally educated society might correlate witha more just society, and a more egalitarian education system might promote economicand social equality. The question then arises, are our schools fulfilling these objectives?Are they training our students to succeed in their individual endeavors and socialendeavors?
Some important studies and statistics tell us that they aren’t.
According to most metrics, schools are failing miserably. In addition to a highhigh-school dropout rate, test scores are dismally low. Only 15% of low-income studentsscored proficient in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2007,and only 17% of low-income students scored proficient in math (Jihyun, Grigg, & Dion,2007). Reading and math test scores for 17-year-old students have largely remainedstagnant since the 1970s
3
, while classroom structures have largely remained the same.
3
 http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/04/28/education/28scores.graphic.ready.html 
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Serguei53

Jason, I'd like to translate your paper "Extracurricular Education" into Russian. Please, contact me s_mashin@mail.ru Serguei Mashin

reply02 / 11 / 2011
corcus

Jason, I edit a newsletter called The Advocate for the Alliance for Student Activities. I'm interested in getting in touch with you about the possibility of publishing an article based on your paper "Extracurricular Education." Please contact me at lyn@alliance4studentactivities.org. Lyn Fiscus

reply01 / 11 / 2010
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