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Generational differencesNear schoolThe near
school experience category accounted for 21.8% of the total interviews.
Younger respondents provided more school-leaving stories than those in
the other age groups, at least partly because these stories were fresh in their
minds from relatively recent experiences.
Many of these stories focused around specific school confrontations that
prompted the respondents to leave school in anger or frustration.
A twenty three-year-old black male related the following story: One day, in the gym, I was sittin’ there doin’ my work. I was just tryin’ to finish it before I went home ‘cause I didn’t like takin’ work home. We had PE that day and I didn’t do the PE. And we had this coach, he was our PE teacher. I was layin’ on the stage and he was yellin’ at me and tellin’ me to get on the bleachers. And I said, “Wait a minute, let me finish my work and I’ll get up there.” And he started yellin’ at me, cussin’ me out, so I just got up and walked to the office. It made me mad, you know, and I got frustrated with them. So I just said, “Fine--I quit!” And I just walked on out of school and didn’t come back. Similarly, another respondent reported a confrontation with
the principal that resulted in her being expelled. I was pregnant and I tried going back and the principal, he made it harder and harder on me ‘cause I was in my twenties. He said, “We don’t allow older people here,” and he’d always harass me. I said, “I’m doing the best I can do and all you’re doing is just making it harder on me.” He gave me a cussing one day and I said, “I don’t have to take this from you.” And he kicked me out of school, never allowed to go back. While it is not possible to verify the objective truth of
these stories, their importance lies in the fact that these former students
related them as terminating their high school careers.
They made subsequent adult education decisions based on their account of
these school-leaving experiences regardless of their objective truth.
Other respondents related stories of administrative errors that caused
them to lack the credits they needed for graduation. I was in the eleventh grade. I was passin’--they passed me through to the twelfth. I went to the counselor to get a transcript and I had five credits. From the ninth grade to the twelfth grade and I had five credits. They was gonna let me walk with the rest of them, but I would have had to come back to summer school and then the next semester. I still wouldn’t have had all my credits. This student reasoned that she would be better off quitting
high school and completing her GED rather than spending the time required to
make up the credits she lacked.
Oftentimes respondents in the near school experience category viewed the
GED as an alternative to high school. They
were sometimes encouraged by adults to do so.
Older respondents virtually never described the GED in this way. I just got tired of school and signed myself out. My parents was actually kind of the ones that told me to do it, especially my mom. ‘Cause at the time I was eighteen and I still had my junior and senior year left. So, she’s like, “Go get your GED and you can do whatever, you know, quicker than you can going to school.” For students in the near school experience category who
found school unrewarding and frustrating, the GED presented an alternative way
of acquiring necessary workplace credentials.
Carrying through with GED completion, however, was not always as easily
accomplished as they had anticipated, evidenced by the fact that none of our
interviewees had yet completed it. “I’ve waited about a year now to go get
it--two years.”
Younger respondents also frequently had less sense of direction than
older respondents and often appeared to be at loose ends.
They did not have a clear idea of vocational options that might best suit
them, as illustrated by the following comments related by a respondent currently
employed part-time in a fast food restaurant. I want to get some kind of education and a better job. I haven’t really thought about what. The only thing right now is like, factory jobs. I don’t really want to do it, but I don’t know. Rather than moving toward any specific goal, these younger
respondents seemed to be moving away from experiences--including school--that
they viewed negatively. To some
extent this lack of direction is characteristic of late adolescence and young
adulthood. I want to get my GED and get a job. I don’t have time to go to college right now and I really need a job and [to] move from where I’m livin’. Then I’ll take some college classes. I don’t know what kind, but I’ll take some just basic classes at first, until I know what I want to major in . . . I want to better myself. I’m like in a stand still right now. I need to go ahead and take my GED and see what else is out there. Many
near school experience respondents were undecided about work, education, and personal
responsibilities.
This was typically in sharp contrast to mid-career and near-retirement
workers. |
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