Why are we dropping out? By Nicholas Dimmick

It’s common knowledge now that LHS has the highest dropout rate in the entire state of Kansas. Faculty and administration are baffled at this and wracking their brains attempting to find a cause when it’s on the papers they hold.

Being a student (and not exactly a “model” student either) I know personally several people who have dropped out of school. I can list off all their reasons in quotes, most of them are along the lines of “I can’t take such and such teacher’s bullshit anymore”, “It’s stupid, I can just get my GED and get on with my life” and a slew of apathetic grunts and gibberish.

I look at the “teacher bullshit” and think why does this teacher ride your ass? Because they act out, and I know they do. But why do they act out? Why does any student act out? It’s not for attention alone. Teachers say “they aren’t being challenged enough” or “they’re being challenged too much” because when a student has a problem it’s by default an error with the student, right?

I speak from personal experience that students act out because they are bored. The subjects taught in school are indeed essential but they are presented in an out-of-date style of teaching called ‘assembly line teaching’ where through book assignments, work sheets, tests and quotas attempting to get students to fit a mold. Some schools have abandoned this but LHS still follows the assembly line teaching method. This can be traced back to the “I can just get my GED and get on with my life” as well. Students are bored to the point of frustration leading them to not daring risk going to collage for another four years of even more difficult boredom. So they drop out and get their GED or so they say, and end up bumming through their later teens vandalizing stealing and shooting up.

I know this because I can list at least seven people I know personally who have or will follow this path (of course I won’t for their sake). And I can say through personal experience that the only classes I act out in are classes where a “quota” is the guideline and bookwork and assembly line teaching is in effect. And once you start acting out it’s difficult to stop and gets worse and worse (I also know from personal experience).

This generation… MY generation is worlds different from the last, if the school board wants to lower dropout rates, teenage crime, and delinquent activities in schools, they need to drop the assembly line teaching style and adapt to the change in generations. Teachers should discuss material in depth with their students, interact with their class and communicate lessons in a way that a young mind can easily absorb and understand. If teachers taught more and instructed less, school wouldn’t be something to dread every day, students would skip less, and drop out less (though it’ll never really stop 100%).

My own personal experience as a student and as an aspiring psychologist has brought me to this conclusion. This isn’t an opinion, this is a fact, and I’m ready to prove it.