Of Dropouts and Losers

Somehow, somewhere the debate about schooling in the US has become so narrow that all we seem to see as a vision of the future of schooling is to prepare every student for college, whether or not they attend. As part and parcel of that discussion is the tendancy to view the dropout rate in high school as the symptom of all national ills. The Colorado legislature, for example, has passed a law this session that would raise the mandatory school age from 16 to 17, apparently pretending as if we even monitor and hold accountable parents and sixteen-year-olds now. Effect of the law? A lot of self-congratulatory back-slapping.

When were we sold on this idea that leaving school before the diploma is in hand is the sure sign of a loser and a wasted life? I have quite a few students whose example proves far otherwise. Leaving high school is not the end of a life. Often, it is the beginning of a search for self and independence that is necessary to return later to education with a newfound appreciation and sense of identity. I have former students who have left school who are working far harder than the lazy one in the second row whose life goal is to sleep through seven periods a day.

The American Enlightenment Socratic view of education as a path to "knowing oneself" has given way to an industrial vision of manufacturing citizen cogs. Perhaps a more humane view of schooling, rather than a more rigorous one. Rigorous shares the same root word as rigid.