By Emanuel Pariser
"We have created schools in which not only young people are powerless but adults are powerless. We have asked our young people to become grownups in the absence of grownups… in the absence of people who are powerful models of what it could be like to be a grownup." ( Meier, 1999)
The challenge to dropout prevention is, in a sense, the challenge of eliminating this sense of powerlessness. Students, teachers, administrators and the community feel powerless to "do something" about a problem that they perceive needs "fixing." We perceive dropping out as a narrow issue, but it is one that pervades and connects with every sector of our culture. Yet, it is not a simple problem that "exemplary programs" can rectify.
Roger Chesswass, Director of Evaluation at the North Central Regional Educational Lab, encourages us to avoid approaching prevention by "trying to change discrete behaviors, risk factors and deficiencies of individuals, by targeting specific students, programs or technologies in order to fix the problem'." (Chesswas, 1994) Rather he suggests that we take a comprehensive approach to "defining what we want young people to be and do, not what we don't want them to do." (Chesswas, 1994) By focusing on preventing a negative outcome, such as students dropping out of school, we create a context that only provides us with fragmentary, short-term solutions. The problem is construed as existing in the "at-risk" individual, rather than the conditions out of which the individual develops.
What can we do to create learning environments that will help young people and their teachers become what we want them to be? If we are serious about this issue, where do we start? I will try to respond to these important questions by offering my insight gained from practicing "Relational Education" at the Community School in Camden, Maine. "Relational Education" places a primary focus on the development of trusting, supportive, and resilient relationships between all members of the learning community.
The comments below are derived from my experience of 28 years as a teacher and director of an alternative high school. However, I think much of what I have to say is as applicable to middle and elementary schools as it is to high schools. It is important to recognize that elementary schooling is the foundation for successful completion of high school. Collaboration with preschool programs such as Head Start is essential. Making sure that each child in our grade schools can read, write and compute is an absolute prerequisite to their success in secondary education. But these factors alone are not enough. Young children and their teachers have to know that their lives in the present have meaning, they are a part of something, someone cares for them, and they in turn can care for others.
Creating School Communities
The twentieth century has brought us massive societal changes that our schools have not been able to keep pace with. Perhaps the most significant change has been the change in the structure of the family. More than fifty percent of the children in schools now have experienced the divorce of their parents and many students have always lived with a single parent. The extended family has also weakened. There are few aunts, uncles or grandparents to fill in when relationships at home get strained or stop working.
Economic and social forces have ripped traditional communities apart. Most of us do not know our neighbors well, we commute to work, and live in families where both parents work full-time. For many teenagers, informal time with adults is almost nonexistent. In school, they are in classes only with peers their age and teachers have limited time to develop authentic relationships with them. At home, both parents work, are tired, or absent.
How do we develop school communities that reverse these conditions? In our practice of Relational Education, we have found the following key elements essential for the creation of a successful school community.
An Environment of Trust
Many of our students at the Community School have histories of acute and chronic betrayal, abuse, neglect, or disinterest resulting in a lack of trust in adults. Their experience leads them believe that the future will bring much the same unhappiness as the past. For learning to take place, students must be able to trust their teachers, as well as themselves. Five key elements in the program at the Community School that help to build trust are(Pariser,1999):
- Choice
- Rational Program Structure
- Academic Engagement
- Democratic Governance and Decision-Making Processes
- The One to One
Choice
Offering enough alternatives to students so that they can choose an educational approach which fits them is critical.
Rational Program Structure
Programs and approaches should be clear and make sense to students. Day-to-day life at the Community School Residence makes sense to the students. They work at jobs in the community during the day, are responsible for daily household chores, and study at night. Performance expectations are known. For Passages students, rural teen parents who are tutored in their homes, the structure also makes sense. They can have their children close by, meet with other students regularly in group workshops, and use needed community resources to further their education.
Academic engagement
Students are involved in the structuring of their own courses; whenever possible, students choose curricular subject matter that is relevant to their interests and skill levels.
Democratic Decision-Making
Students are involved with faculty in making decisions regarding programmatic issues as well as developing codes and consequences for individual behaviors.
One-to-One
Each student is assigned a one-to-one advisor. The student meets regularly with his "one to one" to go over progress in the program, and on a more fundamental level, to develop a trusting and supportive relationship with an adult. In many cases, this is one of the first times that our students will have experienced such a reciprocal relationship.
In a successful one-to-one pair, the teacher/counselor focuses caring, respectful attention on the student, and encourages the student to focus the same attention on him or herself. Expectations of support and acceptance develop between the pair. At its very best, this powerful process allows the students to open up to other members of the school community, as well as to themselves.
Belonging: Finding a Place Where We "Fit"
Larger schools can only become communities if they create smaller subgroups, such as programs with distinct identities and functions through which students and faculty can experience each other directly and meaningfully. The relational fabric which is created in smaller sub-communities will connect community members to each other and to the larger school community. We can see the positive impact of this with students who are involved in "extracurricular" activities and clubs.
Responsibility
The relational approach is a response to the fact that adolescents have been forced to "grow up absurd," in Paul Goodman's words. Our society has extended childhood by increasing the amount of time kids spend in school, often without giving them meaningful enough roles in their schools, families, communities or economy.
Examples of the successful development of responsibility come from our experience at the Community School. Students at the Community School hold jobs in the community and pay for their room and board and will not graduate if they are not paid up. They have to find and hold these jobs in order to complete the program. Similarly, students are held accountable by the school community for their chores and for their behaviors at the school. We are continually trying to break down the barriers between the "real world" and the school because as one student put it, "What's the point of taking us out of the real world if the idea of school is to prepare us for it? " One aspect of this approach, giving students a practical part in the running of their schools, is feasible in any school. In our Passages Program, students are already immersed in the real world because of their parental responsibilities. The objective of our program is to help them face the challenges of being young parents.
Co-Creation of Knowledge
In the relational model, the teacher/counselor and student have reciprocal roles. The teacher/counselor learns the best approach for the student from the student's "learning autobiography." This oral history addresses the student's learning preferences, anxieties, strengths, and weaknesses. Thus, the criteria for academic success is collaboratively established.
In a speech at a conference this spring, Brenda Wentworth, a Community School graduate from 1979, shared her reasons for resistance towards traditional education. She explained that, as a student, she had difficulty accepting the power structure that seemed to support only the teacher's "truth" as opposed to the student's. "'Power over' is the nemesis of the traditional educational process. When a student feels less than and a teacher feels more than, there can be no real helpful educational exchange. When a student realizes that a teacher's beliefs are just that, beliefs, the student often begins to challenge the teacher. The teacher, fearing exposure, often perceives this as a personal attack, and attempts to hide behind his armor of adult status and authority. The teacher then imposes punitive measures to shut down the student's assault, and students often retreat into despair, depression and sometimes rage."(Wentworth, 1999)
It is our job as relational educators to keep a vigilant eye on this dynamic and challenge ourselves to work from a co-creative rather than "power over" position with our students.
Teachers: A Key To The Transformation Of Our Schools
To keep students connected with their education, we must create true learning communities. Teachers are a key to such a transformation. At the Community School, we call our teachers "teachers/counselors" because we feel it is critical for them to have skills generally associated with counseling, such as receptivity and reflection, along with more conventional teaching skills.
As a transformational teacher you will(Pariser, 1998):
1. Cherish the children you work with for who they are right now.
2. Be honest and self-reflective in your teaching practice.
3. Understand that you are a co-worker, co-facilitator, co-creator of students' knowledge.
4. Pay attention to your students as learners and human beings.
5. Understand that students need informal time with you to discover who you are as a person, and to identify with you on a deeper level than your role as teacher often permits.
6. Fill your classroom with choices so that students feel ownership of what they are studying.
7. Include all aspects of your student's lives as part of the curriculum.
8. Be respectful of your students and open to their truth while holding your own center.
9. Pay close attention to your reactions to your students.
10. Understand that learning, like evolution, is not a steadily paced linear progression of experiences. It comes in bursts and only when the learner is ready.
13. Give students roles and responsibilities in your classroom which are real.
14. Continually break down the barriers between schooling and the real world, by bringing the real world into the classroom, and by getting students out of the classroom for projects, independent study, trips, etc.
15. Take care of yourself!
Perhaps, if we turn our focus to the creation of the conditions which will result in the development of self-directed, productive, and compassionate students , we will see that the most important thing we can do for our students and teachers is to provide them with schools which are true learning communities, where the emphasis is as much on the heart as it is on the mind.
For more information on building learning communities, visit the following sites...
- Alternative Education Resource Organization
- Center For Inspired Learning
- National Dropout Prevention Network
- National Coalition of Alternative Community Schools
- Paths of Learning
- Rethinking Schools
References
Meier, Deborah, Panel Presentation, at the Conference on Relational Education, Camden, Maine, May 8, 1999.
Chesswas, Roger, "Being Clear About What We Mean By Prevention", pg. 4, Midwest Regional Center for Drug Free Schools and Communiities, June 1994. Chesswas@ncrel.org
Pariser, Emanuel, "Relational Education - an Antidote to Learning Despair" Woodbury Reports, October 1999, Issue#62.
Wentworth, Brenda, Panel Presentation, at the Conference on Relational Education, Camden, Maine, May 8, 1999.
Pariser, Emanuel, "Pay Attention: Twelve Suggestions on Counseling in an Educational Setting", National Dropout Prevention Newsletter, Fall 1998, Pg. 5 - Complete version on their website: www.dropoutprevention.org
