School hatred and alienation

For the past several years I have the pleasure of working at both traditional and non-traditional high schools. One of the many roles I have performed is the person that has to deal with disciplinary issues. One of the more interesting aspects is when I would look at the past records of the child I was about to deal with. I found that I could clearly see when academics and school life started to deteriorate both from the school records such as grades, attendance and behavior and also by looking at the school pictures (from smiles to a look of anger or sadness). I'm very confident that if you went to an elementary school and asked if they plan on dropping out when they get older that any would say yes.Often times I wondered what event or events triggered the beginning of school hatred or the student's alienation. 

I recently was reading the book A School for Healing by Rosa Kennedy and Jerome Morton.  I found this to be a very revealing piece which also assisted me in pinpointing how their research fit in with the students I have worked with. Basically, while there may have been several sub categories, it came down to four areas in which we can attribute as the start of school disconnectedness: 1. A major move. 2. Illegal drug use and violence in the home. 3. Perceived racism, harassment or teacher unfairness and 4. The divorce and subsequent remarriage of a parent.

It is by this I often have vacillated between trying to define students that have dropped out of school or have they been pushed out due not being able to "fit" in like the others.  In many respects Alternative Learning Centers or Charter Schools have been able to re-build some of the damage caused due to their lower number of students and teacher ratios and their staff's willingness to understand that responsibility is really a triangulation between school, student and home.

At the traditional school, which at times are more difficult to address the need for improvement, I'm excited as a first year principal after five years as the director of an alternative high school to see the potential for improvement. The goal is to ensure that the focus is on the student and therefore creating a Learner Centered Community.  I believe this in turn will minimize the affect of student apathy and alienation.  To accomplish this, several beliefs must be agreed on and at time the ground for staking this out can be lonely.  Some of these are: 1. It is not okay for a student to fail. 2. Schools must facilitate meaningful student-adult relationships both in and out of the classroom. 3. Coursework must be relevant, meaningful and rigorous. 4. A system of interventions must be created school-wide to address why students are failing and or exceeding expectations in order to keep them engaged. 5. Data must be used to reflect on instructional practice, continuous improvement and goal setting.

There certainly are more variables that I have listed above as well as each one will have several components to make it happen.  If we are to envelop all students, including at-risk students as valuable members of our school community, we have to be able to meet the needs of all of our students.  We must continue to identify what the variables are be able to respond to these as students progress through our school systems.

Comments

[Neil Rochelle]

Frank, thank you for this post. I'm not sure if it is my background in special education, personal experience with my own son or some of the students I see at superintendent discipline hearings but this topic is something I feel strongly about. For so long I have been in discussions about why and when kids got turned off to school. You've provided some insight and a book I will certainly be reading. Now I'd like to see a post about how to change their attitudes once we all adopt the belief system that they can.

[Ryan Scollen]

I will tell you why I hate school f***ing much. We have to 5 hours of homework a day! Over the weekend I did 12 hours of homework . That is no made up story either. That is absolutely true and my parents both said that I did 12 hours of homework. My parents both have professional jobs. They both work for the Government. When they come home they sit down and eat dinner and then watch TV. I haven’t ever seen them come home with work to do. They don’t spend five f*cking hour doing homework. On top of that must of the students like to play sports. The American students according to most people that you talk to are becoming or are over weight. Well, lets all think about that now......if we have five hours our damn homework then how in the hell are we suppose to get exercise? What the hell? Then....oh, this I love........when you don’t do your homework because you had practice and you also had homework in all your other subjects and they all take an hour, your not going to be able to get it all done in one night. So what do the teachers do? They go on an F*cking rant about how you need to do your homework. In the "real world" you don’t have five things that you have to do at once. At least not in my parent’s professions. You do have a boss up your ass though. Anyway, the same with tests when I got a 56% on a math test, my teacher made a petty little comment to me. Like it isn’t bad enough that I got that bad enough grade but the fact that they would go so f*ucking low as to belittle me, hurts. I have 5 good friends at school so don’t go and think that I have a problem with other kid because I don’t. This has to do with the way that the educational system is. When student fall asleep in class it is probably because they studied all night like me. Some if not a lot of my teacher tell us to put our bags on the ground because they want to see our every move. School controls your life. I wake up at 6:00am leave at 6:30 and school (zero hour) starts at 6:40. I go to all my class fill my brain with shit and then leave at 2:30. I watch TV from 3:00 to 4:00. Then do hw the rest of the night until about 11 or 12. Then start the process all over again. Day after day. At least in the real world, when you come home you sit down and relax. Students have to reinforce all the bull shit that they learned. So really in school you don’t have a 9-5 job we have a 7-11 job, with some hours off when sports come in. In conclusion school officials had better find a better way to make school less stressful and take step by step. Not all at once 6-7 courses and 4-7 hours of homework. YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER THAT WE ARE STILL KIDS AND WE SHOULD BE HAVING FUN NOT GROWING GRAY HAIR FROM STRESS. That shouldn’t be taken too lightly because some are slackers. My point is that we need to change the school system to way that society is and the way that kids are because school now is overwhelming and almost too much to handle. RANT OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOW THAT WAS THE LONGEST RANT I HAVE EVER GONE ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[naomi]

i am a high school student.i hate school!i like learning things ,but whenever i get to school it isn't about learning anymore ,but it becomes about pleasing people,professors, not disappointing your parents ,and in general living up to some expectations.just the thought of going to school every morning fills
me with despair.i think no one can learn anything in such a pretentious,cold,demanding environment.some changes need to be done!i support your will to understand,and change the situation. i hope something good comes out of it...

[Cenere]

I personally despise school; simply because I just don't like being near people, which is pretty much a necessity in the system ever so thoughtfully provided to us by our fascist government.
Likewise, schoolwork, home work, etcetera has a special place in my heart. Namely I would love to find the sick excuse for a failed abortion that created such an atrocity, and slaughter him (or her) without mercy.
While I do acknowledge that school is important, and that education is the corner stone of humanity itself; I simply dislike it; nay I hate it with the fire and passion of a thousand suns. I will with great pleasure study what I find interesting, while the subjects of my… lesser admiration, I’d much prefer having my teeth pulled out than have to squander my time over such tedious nonsense.
Ah; and on an unrelated manner I’d like to address all the people my age (fifteen) and up, just try spelling the word “you” properly. The letter “u” is not the same thing; you’re humiliating me and every teenager that has the slightest shred of dignity.

[Marshall]

Wow, Cenere, you definitely have a skill for a 15 year old. Seriously - "...fire and passion of a thousand suns...."? Man is that description! Although I do think you overstate for dramatic effect (maybe only 984 suns, huh?), you blew me away with your writing skill. And what 15 year old has the audacity and self-confidence to step up and ask peers to use proper grammer? Evidently - you!
It is very unfortunate that you dislike the current state of education, and I can concur with the disdain and boredom that you express. You demonstrate in your writing that you understand the goal, purpose, and even importance, but that the system is frustrating you. Given that, what would push you to your obviously strong academic limits? What would it take for you to walk into a classroom and create and be engaged in learning? Knowing that you do need to learn and apply, what it is that motivates you to do so? Lastly, and this is the tough one...since you are one person, probably more advanced than the average, what would you suggest to engage the remainder of your peers that have the same distaste and dislike for school but don't understand the value of the education that you have available in whatever form?
I am curious what your response may be. Whatever it is, good luck to u (I mean You).