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Peter Roguszka describes the approach of Port School, a small independent school in
Fremantle, Western Australia, that specialises in working with
disengaged teenagers having difficulties in 'mainstream' schooling.
Back to new Transitions - Re-Engagement Edition
By Peter Roguszka
Download this article 128.67 Kb
Back to new Transitions - Re-Engagement Edition
Introduction: Why do young people become
disengaged?
The notion of disengagement is fascinating in that
it has specific meaning for specific groups of people who are likely
to use the term, a term that will neve be used by those individuals
it seeks to describe. The users of the term are those who have to
deal with the wide ranging consequences of that disengagement.
Various groups of these work or operate in differing sectors of the
broader social services spectrum with each group defining
disengagement in the context of the work of its own agency. Young
people, as a consequence, may be described as being disengaged from
family, work, education or a plethora of other aspects of life that
we, the keepers of important knowledge, know are vital to successful
participation in life.
One of the most common results of this fractured
response to young people facing major challenges is that the focus of
the attempts at remediation is on sub-sets of the total cause rather
than the cause itself. There is a vital question that is too
frequently left unanswered: why is this young person disengaged?
This is vital due to an important need among those working with
disengaged youth not to replicate the cause of disengagement in
attempting to deal with it.
Port School, a small independent school in
Fremantle, Western Australia, has come to specialise in working with
disengaged teenagers who are having difficulties in coping with
mainstream schooling. The Commonwealth Government recently asked us
to produce descriptors of the reasons for disengagement among our
students: we provided 19! The reality is that many of these are
simply different responses to the same causal factor. These causal
factors, we have found, are: personal abuse of all kinds, frequently
as a young child; being bullied; acrimonious family break-up;
parental drug/substance abuse, mental illness and learning
disabilities.
Our experience suggests that there is a common
thread in the presentation and severity of disengagement: there is a
significant correlation with problems or dysfunction within their own
families or carers' homes. It is valuable to consider the role of
parents and family when discussing a child's dysfunction as our
experience shows us that very often what we are dealing with are the
problems of the parents reflected in the behaviour of the child.
The Possibility of Explanation
The ways in which responsible adults respond to
the child or young person very frequently predict the ways in which
any disengagement develops. As each child enrolled at Port School is
disengaged to some degree the cohort represents a valuable sample for
some degree of phenomenological research. Port School staff members
have a very good understanding of the ways in which disengagement
manifests and the life experiences that contribute to it. This
experience shows us how the behaviours of significant adults in the
child's life affect that child. In discussing this phenomenon it
must be remembered that the comments made concern typical causal
relationships and that there will always be exceptions to the most
common outcomes.
The way in which disengagement presents is most
likely to reflect the experience of other people's behaviour that
the child most frequently experiences. To illustrate this it is
valuable to consider two different types of disengagement. We have
experience of two students who have suffered sexual abuse at an early
age. One displays extreme levels of disengagement with frequent
aggressive and angry outbursts. The other presents with very few
indicators of disengagement (however, this would change very quickly
away from the carefully created supportive environment of the
school). The only identifiable difference between the two is the
ways in which the respective carers respond to problematic behaviour.
In the case of the former relationships at home are verbally abusive
with anger and threat being used to control behaviour. The second
student's family are supportive and loving in spite of enormous
social and intellectual barriers to their ability to achieve this.
It takes far more than these two examples of the
range of disengaged behaviours to even suggest there is a common
thread operating. I have used these, merely as examples to
illustrate what we have observed in hundreds of adolescents over the
last five years. It is these observations that lead to a belief that
the nature of family or carer relations have a significant impact on
the way in which disengagement manifests. Unfortunately, having this
information does not help to avoid disengagement. Rather it helps
workers in the field to understand its causes. In turn this has no
value unless this understanding can be applied to the problem to
advise strategies that can help address the problems and
disadvantages caused by behaviours associated with disengagement.
Dealing With Disengagement at School
If we accept these causes of behaviours associated
with disengagement it becomes necessary to attempt to identify the
social situations in the young person's life that are similar to
negative family behaviours that exacerbate the responses he or she
makes. Unfortunately, the one place at which all young people are
expected to spend a very large proportion of their lives inevitably
replicates many of the dysfunctional factors that elicit the negative
behaviours.
Because schools, in the main, are designed to work
on an economy of scale and consequently bring large numbers of young
people together there is a pressing need to initiate procedures of
control. Without control, bringing hundreds of adolescents together
at the same time would be almost certain to very rapidly lead to a
state of aggressive anarchy. It is not by accident that Golding's
Lord of the Flies (1954) strikes a strong chord with
young and old alike. The procedures of control inevitably lead to a
certain degree of conflict: "Don't run!" when an energy filled
adolescent wants to let off steam, "Don't push!" when he is
eager to arrive, "Don't dawdle!" when he wants to avoid the
destination. These simple and mostly innocuous controls create a
little resentment and consequent defiance and it is this that
generates the serious conflict. It is worth considering that
conflict perfectly describes the defining aspect of communication
sofrequently seen in the disengaged youth's family and social life.
We can deduce from this that a mainstream school
with its large size and lists of rules could not be better designed
to stimulate aggressive responses in disengaged young people. Having
reached this conclusion how can we respond? Almost every developed
nation requires young people to participate in education. For the
vast majority the only way this can be done is through attendance at
a school. In addition there is a range of research data that tell us
that the longer young people stay at school the better their
subsequent life-chances. For these reasons merely opting out is not
acceptable and if this option is taken research also tells us that
life-chances will be further compromised (see Marginson 1993).
The only possibility is an alternative type of
school for disengaged youth, one that actively seeks to identify and
eliminate the points of conflict that most schools see as being
desirable, if not essential. Port School is such an institution,
enrolling students referred by the Department of Child Protection,
Juvenile Justice, District Education Office's attendance and
student services sections, high school principals and parents coming
to their wits end trying to find a school their child can cope with.
As the majority of enrolling students have a
history of achieving very little success in education, the school's
core belief is that everyone is good at at least one thing. The
school must identify this one thing and encourage the success that is
gained from it with the intention of developing the success to
encompass other areas of the school curriculum. Clearly, this is not
an adequate basis on which to run a school for students at risk but
it does provide a guide to making decisions about the other
procedures that have to be implemented to allow the school to work.
Most conflict in schools occurs between staff and
students when there is a requirement to modify behaviour, whether
this behaviour relates to simply sitting quietly and getting on with
a learning task or not punching another student. Almost every aspect
of working with young people in a school involves the expectation of
a change of behaviour. In the vast majority of these cases there is
no problem as this is a normal part of daily social behaviour.
However, the disengaged child has a much lower tolerance to what he
or she would see as "being told what to do" and even simple
requests can quickly develop into extreme conflict situations. As
not asking students to do or not do things is not an option in a
school another strategy to avoid this situation arising has to be
found. The most effective way we have found lies in a strategy that
is repeatedly espoused in behaviour management texts: building
positive relationships. Unfortunately, this is nigh on impossible in
mainstream schools due simply to the pressure of numbers: it is not
possible to develop positive relationships with the 100 to 180
adolescents that most high school teachers work with each week. With
disengaged young people all the adults that work with them must have
a positive relationship with them. The only way this can be achieved
is in a small school: 50 students maximum, with small classes: less
than ten students but preferable half that number.
If this can be achieved a much greater level of
success is attainable but there are simple things that experience
shows improves the chances even more:
-
removing institutionalised points
of conflict (school rules) such as uniforms, arbitrary rules eg. no
hats in class, hierarchical forms of address, eg. Sir or Miss when
students are called by their first name;
-
giving and expecting respect
-
reducing school hours (ask a high
school teacher with disengaged students how effective the last
lesson in the day is!);
-
providing breakfast
While simple sounding, every one of these become
more difficult as the size of the school increases. The implication
of this is that education departments need to make special provision
for disengaged young people as the schools they provide (at least
here in Western Australia) can not successfully provide for their
educational needs.
On a per capita basis the cost of the government
sector doing this would be in the region of four to six times that of
educating an "average" student and consequently is unlikely to
followed through in a committed way. However, there is an
alternative: small independent specialist schools that gain
additional funding from government, not only in recognition of the
educational value but also the savings to other agencies who become
less likely to deal with these young people when they have reached
the point of being unable to continue attending school. Research in
the UK suggests that the cost to society of one adolescent not
attending school is £64,000 ($142,000) for a range of
government department services, insurance and repairs and maintenance
(Brrokes, Goodall & Heady2007). Even a small fraction of the
savings a small specialist school for disengaged young people could
generate would fund that school more than adequately.
Conclusion
Disengagement in young people has enormous costs
attendant upon it, for the individual, for friends and family, for
government departments and for the wider community. With an
understanding of the causes of this disengagement, action can be
taken to address the problem as the knowledge of what action is both
feasible and effective exists in some sectors of the education
community.
As with so many aspects of working with deeply set
and difficult problems faced by individuals effective action is both
contentious and expensive. The benefit for the individual of
effectively addressing the problem should, in itself, be sufficient
justification for committing to the expenditure. When savings to the
wider community can be demonstrated it becomes clear the cost of not
taking action puts an imposition on society that should not be
countenanced. Sadly, for reasons that may include prejudice against
young people who do not present as "nice" and compliant there is
little commitment from governments and community leaders to make a
start.
Port School is one of a handful across the country
that has worked in this climate of indifference and even hostility to
try to make a difference for a small number of disengaged young
people. The degree of success being achieved is what makes it worth
carrying on. The time must, surely, be approaching when the value of
what these schools are doing is recognised and their management will
be able to concentrate on making the schools even better rather than
frantically negotiating with bureaucrats to maintain sufficient
funding to remain open.
References
Brookes, M, Goodall, E & Heady L
(2007), Misspent Youth: the cost of truancy and exclusion, New
Philanthropy Capital, London.
Golding, W. (1954), The Lord of the
flies, Faber & Faber, London.
Marginson, S (1993), Educational
Credentials in Australia: Average Positional Value in Decline,
Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Melbourne,
Melbourne.
About
the Author
Dr Peter Roguszka has
been principal of Port School for five years. Prior to that he
worked in various teaching roles in government schools in WA, NT and
the UK.
Port
School is a small independent school specialising in working with "at
risk" adolescents. Over the years programs have been developed
that have proven to be very effective with many students successfully
transitioning into work or further education.
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