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WORK AND LEARNING CENTER: FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE
Submitted by: Calvin R. Stone, Madison Metropolitan School District (retired)
Theory IN 1975, MOST of the research about high school dropout focused on the characteristics and traits of the individuals who dropped out. These individuals were described as being from economically poor or dysfunctional families that did not value education. And a significant percentage was thought to have character flaws or to be intellectually incapable of completing high school. This perspective on the issue tended to "blame the victims," thereby exonerating schools from responsibility, since it identified causes over which schools have little or no control. This genre of research provided little guidance to schools about how to reduce dropout. As teachers working with potential and former dropouts, the experience of the Work and Learning Center (WLC) conflicted with what was then current educational research. In WLC classrooms, teachers were working with youth who were capable, often bright, but who had become alienated from school to the point that they were hopelessly behind in credits toward graduation and no longer viewed the existing high schools as a personally viable route of opportunity. Then, outside the immediate field of education, in research on juvenile
delinquency, WLC staff discovered two nuggets-explanations that identified
student alienation and perceived lack of opportunity as the root causes
of youth problems. And these explanations seemed to suggest or prescribe
ideas for school improvement. Travis Hirshi (1969) delineated the effects
of alienation, and D.C. Elliott and H.L. Voss (1974) examined perceived
lack of opportunity as causal in the advent of dropout and delinquency.
A brief description of each explanation follows:
WLC was designed for students who were unsuccessful in mainstream high schools. Of participating students, about 70% had officially dropped out of school before the end of the tenth grade. By providing structured opportunities for social bonding, academics, and career development, WLC re-engages the processes of development, thereby reestablishing the students' connectedness to conventional institutions like school and work. Program Structure and Academics
Targeted work is a central focus of the WLC because, from a developmental perspective, work settings provide opportunities for social bonding, and work is a high school student's next world of mastery and opportunity. Not all work experiences, however, provide the same developmental opportunities. Only carefully selected work opportunities provide the building blocks of self-development. WLC students go to school for half days and work half days. Work requirements are defined by a four-semester sequence intended to foster particular developmental goals. The following is an explanation of how the experiences are selected, ordered, and guided by a developmental perspective. Semester One: Work at a daycare center or in classrooms serving young children.
Children's classrooms are psychologically safe and nonthreatening environments, supervised by teachers who are human service professionals. Working with small children, WLC students quite naturally begin to align with the adults, perceiving themselves as responsible for the safety and development of the children. The children value and even admire adolescent students, demonstrating appreciation and making them feel valued and esteemed. Feeling important, competent, and needed, these students have discovered that institutions (e.g., the context of work) can serve to support, rather than to undermine, their sense of individual worth. Students begin to feel they can be successful in a conventional setting and come to value work as a context in which they are esteemed and valued. Semester Two: Students build a house and work with the elderly. House building. Houses are built in collaboration with a community-based organization. In this setting, youth have to effectively respond to the expectations of their crew chief, who has carpentry and construction skills, but whose priority is rebuilding and reconnecting the participating youth. The work is physically challenging, difficult, and dirty, but it also results in clear and concrete outcomes: a tangible product. Within this context, youth build feelings of competency and identity based on both their cooperative efforts and their developing skills. When the house is completed, the workers are honored in a ceremony that involves dignitaries such as the bankers who financed the project, and city officials such as the mayor. The students have completed tasks and developed competencies (i.e., roofing the house, installing and finishing drywall) beyond the capabilities of most adults. The house becomes a permanent monument to their developing competency. Care for the elderly people. Students work for an academic quarter at a residence for elderly people. Each has a caseload, two or three individuals with whom they spend the most time. Emphasis is placed on social bonding and on learning to see the world from the perspective of the older person. Inevitably some of the elderly people are critical and judgmental, necessitating that the students draw on previous experiences of praise, support, and success as a way of buffering the vocal expectations of the people they care for. And, in this setting, the adolescent students' future orientation is piqued by each elderly person's life story, which includes testimony about the causes and effects of life choices and the resulting successes or lost opportunities. Moreover, by working with individuals who have values, beliefs, and experiences different from their own, the students confront challenges to their own values, which will stimulate development of identity.
After a full year in WLC, students begin to choose types of work that reflect their unique interests and developing identities. In the second semester, in the classroom, a counseling program becomes a major component of the school curriculum. Students complete occupational interest inventories and aptitude assessments, which are matched with job possibilities. Students study jobs in terms of what workers actually do, salary, job availability, training, education needed, etc. The school counselor meets individually with students, and the field of jobs is narrowed down to two jobs that the student wishes to explore. Students have the opportunity to experience a variety of jobs, including those that require postsecondary and advanced education. The third semester teacher helps each student develop internships in the two selected areas. In the internships, the students explore future options, identifying and considering the range of jobs that make up the establishment. The rationale is that building skills and connections to the world of work and to the future develops opportunities. Semester Four: Real world employment. During the fourth semester, students receive on-the-job training in an occupation representing a career interest and high occupational aspirations. Employers are informed about WLC goals and the student's current training and future aspirations. Employers have a dual role: hiring an employee who is expected to be productive, but simultaneously helping to "bring along" a young person who still needs to explore, reflect and be "mentored." Employers vary the student's work assignments, sequencing the work to provide increasingly complex tasks, ideally in conjunction with related training. By the fourth semester, students typically are very independent in their work, though still under a protective umbrella of strong contextual support. The student has a contact person at the job site who serves as a mentor. The WLC teacher monitors the student's work and may be demanding, but at the same time he or she is an advocate and job coach. The school counselor is a sounding board and source of encouragement for continuing education beyond high school or for specialized training while still in high school. If the student wishes to take specialty courses at the local technical college, the school district will pay for tuition and books. And, WLC students have access to a school social worker, to childcare if they are parents, and to a number of post-high school education scholarships. Conclusion Students who have or who are at risk of dropping out tend to be disconnected from school, their families, and work. Disconnection typically involves rejection of these institutions. This rejection exacerbates the disconnection, and further thwarts normal development. By constructing opportunities for social bonding, the successful integration of youth into school and work settings, and subsequent engagement in meaningful, responsible, social roles, WLC walks students up the developmental ladder, re-engaging the processes of development and re-establishing students' connectedness.
Elliott, DC and Boss, HL. (1974). Delinquency and Dropout, Lexington,
MA: DC Heath and Company. Program Founder: Telephone: 608-233-1913 School: Telephone: 608-442-0939
Papers Karcher, M., & Stone, C. (2002). The Importance of Promoting Connectedness Through Developmentally Structured Work Experiences.
Karcher, M., & Lee, Yun. (2002). Connectedness Among Taiwanese Middle School Students: A Validation Study of the Hemingway Measure of Adolescent Connectedness. Asia Pacific Education Review, 3(1), 92-114.
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