Opt-out teens need other options

“To look for confirmation rather than refutation of what we already know, our assumptions, theories, and taken-for-granted beliefs can become significant barriers to critical thinking.  (Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast & Slow)

We expend a lot of energy bending students to the will of the institution of school. Hearing my own voice from when I started teaching 27 years ago, I hear a voice of compliance building: "If you don't do X, how will Y: pass this course, manage when you get a job?" This hidden curriculum of "compliance as good social behaviour" sees a young person as fulfilling a role, in this case, student. Some people excel as students, learning how to do what is asked of them. For them, following the role works. For others, it is unfulfilling and in some cases, demoralizing. The teen years are crucial in forming identity. While a fundamental human question is "Who am I?" a teenager in high school also asks, "Who am I here?"

Knowing who one is also means knowing how one fits within one’s community. David Blumenkratz

In their book Leaving to Learn, Elliot Washor and Charles Mojkowski identify four general reasons why teenagers leave school without graduating: academic failure, behavioral problems, life events, and disinterest. Reasons for disengagement include not fitting in, not mattering, overlooked talent and interests, and restrictions.

In my own work and research with high school students in a flexible learning environment where students were given the freedom to pursue what they chose to learn, I often saw students pursuing topics or projects not addressed in the curriculum. For example, computer game design, setting up and running a Minecraft server, mixing and publishing music on YouTube, getting a pilot's license, rebuilding a snowmobile engine and exploring language and thought processes.

"If only they would just do what we are telling them to do, they would be able to graduate and get on with their lives."(combined voices)

Faced with students who stop attending high school, governments (like here in Manitoba) call on schools to find ways to increase graduation rates, particularly for Aboriginal students. The reasons for not attending are complex, which means there aren’t obvious cause-effect solutions. One assumption for getting the kids back into school is that graduating provides them with the best life opportunities. That is the dominant narrative.

To be is to be perceived. And so to know thyself is only possible through the eyes of the other. (Cloud Atlas) 

While correlations between education levels and increasing wages exists, what role does efficacy and a sense of belonging play? What is the effect of the belief that one has achieved a social expectation, a rite of passage that signals one is ready for the world of work or future education? I'm sure we all know of financially successful individuals who still feel a sense of failure or shame because they did not graduate. For those who accept the pragmatic value of a diploma,

So what can we do about and for these teenagers who have opted out?

Schools cannot manage personal hardships such as mental illness, family conflict, financial issues, drug dependency, and more. What schools can do is offer counseling services and refer students to social agencies best able to support specific needs. And we know this is limited. We don’t even know what we don’t know about all of the complex reasons.

As humans we are caught between competing drives, the drive to belong, to fit in and be a part of something bigger than ourselves, and the drive to let our deepest selves rise up, to walk alone, to refuse the accepted and the comfortable (Jean Vanier, Becoming Human)

Viewed through a lens of complexity, we have a situation of unknown unknowns. That means that the only "plan" we can start with is to engage with the situation directly by connecting and interacting with the non-attending students to find out what we don't know and then generate possible solutions. No, a survey won't do. We need to hear their personal stories. Youth in care have specifically said they want to "be heard." (Full report here.)

The opted-out students may not have agency, but they have intentionality, wishes and desires. What happens when the students tell us what they need and desire and we don't have systems or programs in place to meet those needs? Starting with a curriculum as the end goal assumes the answer is already there.

All successful innovators have mastered the ability to learn on their own ‘in the moment’ and then apply that knowledge in new ways. (Michael Fullan, Stratosphere)

Can we be agile, flexible, develop "on the fly" as we test safe-to-fail initiatives? Can we take responsibility from the school level and try things without waiting for authorisation? The only way to "innovate" in a closed system is to game it. Do we have to start by gaming the system for the students' benefit? What if we engage the teachers who lack agency in context, not ability, and empower them to act. I recall a conversation with a team of teachers from a junior high school who were teaching coding and game development even though no provincial credits existed for it. They simply used another credit code, opting to do what they felt was in the best interest of their students.

It is not freedom, personal, or independent if you are still forced to produce a standard outcome. (student) 

Solutions emerge in complex domains that can't be planned for, only managed. That is, solutions evolve rather than being engineered, it is an organic rather than mechanical process. So try something and observe what happens. (See David Snowden for more on complex adaptive systems).

What manageable, limited steps can schools take to start?