I was a high school dropout. I was young, angry, and a bit depressed. When I think about the moment I withdrew from my high school I really can not sum up one reason why I exactly did it. I was forced to repeat my junior year, and I had to sit in a classroom replete with what I felt like immature and inexperienced teenagers. I knew very little of the class, and I was very ashamed that I would have to watch my peers and my “friends” graduate without me. I sat through that semester, but I promised myself that I wasn’t going to put myself through another semester.
Education drifted away even further than the year before (the year before I didn’t even attend the last three months of school.) It wasn’t essential and I actually believed it prevented me from experiencing what the real world had to offer. I used transcendentalism to continually back up my ignorant arguments to my mom, and finally I turned in my books. I picked up work and I began to work over time. I was labeled a dropout.
During the summer, I realized that I desperately need to move, to get outside the box. The only way that I could gain mobility was through education. Education could uplift me to another location and into another realm of reality.I enrolled in a legitimate school and will receive my diploma earlier than expected. But I still carry the stigma of a dropout for everybody that knows me.
The word dropout comes with a few stereotypes and distasteful connotations. Usually people think dropouts are minorities, poor, pregnant, lazy, and have low intelligence. Well, my parents are well educated. My dad has a PhD and attended Yale and Cambridge. People also usually think dropouts have no future ahead of them that we are a bunch of low lives that come from the dregs of society. I once said that I was a dropout to a group of people and they just gave an eye popping look. I said that I was going to get my high school diploma. The people just laughed and said “Sure, that is what they all say.” I am shocked how society treats people that are dropouts. Globally, many people do not have a high school education.
It is unfortunate that people would rather spend their time criticizing other’s actions than actually trying to help out their situation. Helping out could just be listening to their situation and explanations of why they dropout of high school, or simply by not responding in a negative manner. Many people’s responses are usually ignorant because it displays prejudice, intolerance, and disgust. I used to believe that these thoughts were reserved for the stupid, but now I know these thoughts are also for the educated.
Although I did graduate highschool I used to label people like that and really most the people at my school who did dropout were not stupid people, just going down the wrong path. But I don't do that at all anymore. My boyfriend recieved his GED and recieved it doing 12 hours of work, because he was that intelligent. He didn't have the best family life and his mom wouldn't let him see his friends so he wouldn't go to school so he could see them. Also the school he went to was one of the worst schools. There were shootings, and over 6 rapes a year inside the school itself.
So i understand where you are coming from. I guess the only way I can some what relate is college. I did not go right away so everyone assumed even my family members who knew the situation, told me I was never going to go. I could not try and go to school right after I watched my mom die in the hospital. Yet people were wrong because I am already on my second sememster.
http://www.progressiveu.org/043043-mom-i-can-finally-write-you-letter
Sorry to disappoint you, but I am voting for Lewis Black.
DrifterDani~
Good job standing up for whatever you chose to do. I'm glad you don't let everybody push you around, and I'm glad you decided to tell us how not to act. At the same time, I'm glad you went back to school.
I'm one of those self-driven students who sometimes sits in class, staring at the teacher, wondering why I'm wasting my time there because I could so easily be teaching all of this information to myself. However, I realized in high school that the most important skills I learned from being in school was not from textbooks or in class discussions, but rather from the discipline. The rules kept me in line and taught me how to deal with authorities that were upsetting me and with my classmates. I had to make sure that I didn't gossip, that I was in proper uniform, that I never had my cellphone on me, that I was on time and well prepared for class, and that I organized my time enough to fit in four APs, a volunteer job, a paying job, and afterschool actitivites. College is a breeze for me now that I learned how to deal with high school, while my roommate (who had a private tutor her sophomore, junior, and senior years) can't deal with teachers who don't agree with her and freaks out when she has a mildly busy week. I love that school has prepared me for life by working me harder than life ever will.
At the same time, I understand that dropouts aren't all failures. Both of my older siblings are dropouts, and both of them are absolutely brilliant. They work for my dad and could probably get a job anywhere they wanted if they wanted to be paid more. On the other side, I know that not all educated people are perfect. In the autobiography The Glass Castle, for instance, the author is raised by ivy-league school graduates who don't hold steady jobs and are in trouble with the law. Obviously, education does not determine success; however, I found that it helped me a lot.
I also read The Glass Castle. It is a fantastic book! I am the same type of person , self-driven. My high school is completely independent study. It fits perfectly into my personality.
Dealing with high school is a a pain in the head. i have gone through three high schools. one was a magnet school and another was a school in Spain. In spain i picked up a lot of bad habits. the teachers didnt give any of the students discipline or structure. it was the student's choice if they wanted to show up for class and study. I would have to sit through classes that i barely understood with a bunch of children that were never going to step a foot into a college scream and act like monkeys. I am not kidding about the constant screaming and singing. We could wear and do whatever we wanted which included just walking out of the classroom.Only two people passed the class that year. It taught me that i didn't have an ounce of discipline within me. The school in Spain decreased my interest in public education, and now i must pay for that thought.
i am glad you picked up discipline it is a hard thing to pick up.
Like the three before me, I have to commend you for going back. I know a few people who have dropped out of either high school or college, and I feel sorry for both because there's not much chance that they will go back and finish.
You, on the other hand, obviously saw the need for some kind of a degree and are making the effort to go back. Not many people do, so you most definitely deserve a second chance.
Read and comment as you like.... http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/starving-musician
My dad was (and still is, I guess) in a sense a high school dropout, but he's pretty smart. I think a lot of Americans equate being "educated" with being "intelligent," and that is not always true.
I applaud you for recognizing the ignorance and stereotypes that society has connected with those whose education is cut short for a variety of reasons.
I thank you for writing this blog, because so many people in high school, trade schools, colleges and universities have cut their education short for many reasons and people look down on them. But, there seems to be an ugly stigma on those who did not finish high school more than anyone else.
It is shameful that people do not realize that education does not mean educated. There are many smart, intelligent and educated people whose level of education would be surprising to those who seem to think that they can make a real judgment on who is deemed "educated".
People need encouragement, breaks, chances and compassion. I think so many people have lost sight of these parts of their character due to their ideals of who is educated and what makes a person a success. I hope they never have to meet these same people on their way down, if it ever happens to them.
I wish you much success and know that you will achieve what you set out to do.
My older sister and her husband are drop outs. They're the kind that gives all dropouts a bad name, though. She's 24 and finally starting to turn her life around.
On the flip side, two of my best friends have decided to drop out, get his GEDs, and start community college. Both of them are loving college and feel like they've made the right decision.
Whereas I wouldn't want to drop out (I'm a senior and nearly there O.O), I just feel like it's not the right choice for me. I don't look down upon others. I guess it takes having people you respect become "dropouts" for you to realize that the stereotype is incorrect.
RESPECT LIFE
http://progressiveu.org/blog/respectlife
"It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
~Mother Teresa
I'm glad you posted this, because that's something that bugged me this year, since I'm a senior in high school, and several of my classmates are starting to drop out. A lot of them don't want to put forth the effort anymore, so they're going to get a GED at another school, but I understand where you're coming from when you say they're not all within the stereotype.
A few years ago, one of our girls was raped and got pregnant, and when she had the baby before the beginning of this year she went for her GED instead of graduating. It's not just because she got pregnant, but the choice she made to go through with having a baby that resulted from rape that proved to me she wasn't 'just getting knocked up for the fun of it and now she's got to pay' sort of thing.
That is a horrible situation. I wish the best for the girl, and her courage to still have the baby out of the circumstances.