A Place in the Choir
By Dr. Ryan Donlan
Assistant Professor
Department of Educational Leadership
Bayh College of Education
Indiana State University
All God’s creatures have a place in the
choir; some sing low, some sing higher. Some sing out loud in the telephone
wire …
-- Children’s song lyrics, by Bill
Staines
I often envision these famous lyrics when speaking to
school leaders about their Alternative Schools.
Diversity of circumstance epitomizes their students, the children and
young adults who in many cases have sad songs to sing.
With all of the flavors of at-risk-ness that alternative educators encounter, yet with such
similarities in the typical mosaic that confronts each alternative school as a
whole, I am intrigued by the dichotomies of philosophy that exist regarding
the care and feeding of such students.
The differences are sometimes stark.
I teach doctoral students. As my new cohort begins to formulate
dissertation topics, I would like to suggest Leadership for At-Risk Students as a viable topic. For many years,
alternative schools have made attempts to serve as the last bastion of a
civilized society for some very troubled children. They have purportedly fulfilled their
missions based on best practice and what they believe their community expects. Yet, how are they doing? How are their leaders leading? What is going on that makes a difference, and
what does not?
I wonder what research would say?
At the Washington Hilton Hotel about a decade ago, I
sat with a national delegation that included our State Superintendent,
Governor’s Education Advisor, and select K-12 leaders representing our state
among delegations from the forty-nine others.
At this gathering, the American Alternative School was declared a failed
concept (Whitehurst, 2003). Ouch.
As a leader who had one such school under my
supervision, I took offense to these remarks.
Yet, in the years that followed as I worked in
statewide high school reform, I began to understand this bureaucrat’s
perspective (though not totally embracing any blanket statements), as many
alternative educators provided resistance to the reforms that we were championing
in order to raise rigor, relevance, and relationships in schools.
Rigor was the tough sell. Some actively worked
against it with the mantras, “Our kids just don’t test well,” and “We shouldn’t
be expected to be held to academic standards, as our kids just aren’t
academic.”
Too many alternative schools, it seemed at the time,
wanted a pillow-soft existence with insulated academic accountability. Maybe
this has now changed.
I ask superintendents, “Are your alternative school
leaders really promoting lifelong success for students?” and “Do they embrace
rigor?”
The answers are interesting, as when school leaders
describe what their programs do each day, the descriptions often lean more
toward one dichotomous archetype of delivery system or another. These
archetypes are what communities envision as the “alternative” in alternative
education, yet as I mentioned above, even with the diversity of circumstance
among their students, kids really aren’t that different. They oftentimes come from the same cocktailed
malaise of juvenile delinquency, neglect, overindulgence, pregnancy,
disaffection, abuse, violence, sadness, confusion, and/or abject awfulness that
we would not wish on any kid. Yet, the
mosaic is similar, it seems, no matter where we go.
Programs in different communities seem to treat these
same batches of symptoms differently. This
is interesting to me. Let’s take a look
at what experience has shown to describe different communities’ programs and
the dichotomies that exist in delivery philosophy.
The Dichotomies
DICHOTOMY
OF IDENTITY: Some alternative programs allow children to
come to school and simply “be themselves.” In the spirit of connecting and meeting students where they are, they allow children to wear what
they want, do what they want (sometimes even smoke on street corners or in non-sanctioned
“wink/wink” smoking areas), and communicate what they want (even write in slang
language in the classroom or on their assignments). The intent is to connect with the individual
who is struggling to be heard. Conversely, other programs require that students
perform an identity check, or better said make
an identity adjustment, while attending school. They require students to don uniforms, study professional
etiquette, and adhere to strict behavioral expectations with appropriate
incentives or disincentives. They expect
kids to act very much “unlike” themselves so that they can overcome, overemphasizing a collectivistic responsibility, as
opposed to an individualistic mentality.
DICHOTOMY
OF SERVICE: Some alternative programs provide excessive
visibility of services tailored to the needs of at-risk teens, such as the childcare
for infants and toddlers or “group” sessions for the handling of relationship
issues or for the intervention and treatment of this, that, or the other thing.
The philosophy behind these approaches often rests upon the fact the visibility
of these programs will serve the functions of advertisement and availability for
those who need the help. Other programs work overtime to minimize the
visibility of anything that would identify “circumstance.” Childcare services are offered off-site, as
one example, and intervention services are provided more individually and
confidentially. Excessive public broadcasting, they feel, would intrigue those
not involved into wishing they were a part of all this attention.
DICHOTOMY
OF PREPARATION: Some alternative programs proclaim that most
alternative students will not avail themselves of college and instead find job
training more appropriate to their interests, aptitudes, or abilities. They contend that forcing non-academic
students into an overly academic program is probably what caused them to drop
from traditional schools in the first place. Other programs promote an
unapologetic, no-excuses academic education geared toward continued coursework beyond
high school, as they feel that whether students are on an academic or a job
training path, preparation for higher education will allow students who never
realized they had the potential for both, to better understand that they are
empowered to tackle either.
DICHOTOMY
OF THE INTERVENTION: Some alternative programs provide rooms where
students can go during the school day in the event that they have issues that
interfere with their ability to handle academics or the classroom experience. In what in some cases are called “chill
rooms,” intervention programs and conflict resolution specialists stand ready
to provide conversational remedies to help students with their emotional needs,
so that they can better re-engage academically when they are ready to do so.
Other programs believe that those out-of-class experiences have a tendency to
sidetrack students from necessary, academic instruction and even enable those who wish to avoid hard
work, so they focus more of their efforts on in-class differentiation and
supports to minimize the need for extended stays out of the classroom. The more affective services are provided
during non-instructional time.
DICHOTOMY
OF PERSONNEL: Some alternative programs hire staff members who
have a natural ability to be “in touch” with the students enrolled, as these
employees are liberal in perspective and progressive in their demeanor and
outlook. They report that students often
make quick connections with them as they are seen as hip and in-tune with
student needs. Other programs believe
that children in alternative schools are already surrounded by overly
permissive adults in their lives who are too interested in playing friends with
the younger generation, so they work to counterbalance this with more conservative
staff members who are anything but “hip” and serve more as strict, paternal
influences than they do as big brothers or sisters.
DICHOTOMY
OF PARENTAL PARTNERSHIP: Some alternative programs consider themselves the
last bastion of a civilized society, with adult missionaries who rescue
children from the negative influences of family and even the deleterious
influence of their own parents. They
educate children “in spite” of what they encounter at home and work to supplant the adult influence in the
children’s lives. Other programs believe
that even the most dysfunctional parents are hypercritical as partners and feel
that their efforts would be “undone” each evening by those at home if the
family was not “on board,” so they work toward involving the entire family in
the education of the child, serving as a supplement
to the family unit, no matter how effortful or resource-dependent this
extended relationship becomes.
DICHOTOMY
OF SUPERVISION: Some programs are supported in supervision by
police officers or security guards to ensure the safety of students and staff
while in attendance. These efforts are
often coupled with a procedure for greeting students at the door each morning,
at times involving the use of wands or metal detectors to screen students upon
arrival. Strict monitoring of hallways takes place during class and in passing
times. Other programs believe in a more
subtle approach that does not require the use of uniformed, extrinsic controls
on student behavior, but instead focuses more on a whole-school culture
approach to intrinsic violence prevention and civil co-existence. Hallway
traffic and passing times are not handled so didactically.
So …
Back to my wheelhouse of metaphor: With Bill
Staines' lyrics in mind – If all God’s creatures have a place in the choir with
some singing low and some singing higher, then what type of setting best works
for the mosaic we serve? At-risk
children are diverse, indeed, but are they so different from one another that
such a dichotomy is needed?
On our end, we’ll check the research and will get
back with you in future months about what it says. Until then, enjoy your conversations with
trusted colleagues regarding some great kids who need our help.
Can we ask ourselves, “Why?” when discussing “What”
and “How”?
____________________________________________________________
Dr. Ryan Donlan spent a good portion
of his 20 years in K-12 education working with at-risk high school students and
is interested in further research on alternative education as part of his
scholarship areas of School Wellness, School Reimagination, and Leadership
Development. Like you, he was somewhere on
one side or the other of this dichotomy (and even at times in the middle) as a
leader. Please feel free to continue the
conversation with him at (812) 237-8624 or at ryan.donlan@indstate.edu.
