Quit School? Are You Kidding?

I got an interesting comment during our open house this weekend. One grandfather asked me an intriguing question, “Aren’t you afraid parents are going to get upset with you if you tell their teenagers to leave school?” (He had tuned out what I was explaining about testing kids for their learning styles and motivation, and had zeroed in on a book on our shelf—Grace Llewellyn’s Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education. I must assume he himself is a visual learner.)

My response? “That is exactly what we are here for.” His eyebrows shot up at that one. This man, who happens to have a loving and generous heart, is exactly where so many of us have found ourselves over the years…parent or grandparent to a child who simply does not fit the traditional school system. Having been through the system ourselves, state run schooling—or at least its counterpart in the private realm—has led us to believe that success lies only after meeting the requirements demanded of the institutional model. How could anyone lead a successful life as a drop out?

Drop Out? Who says leaving traditional education is the equivalent of giving up on life? Yet that tends to be the assumption. Like many areas of life, that assumption is wrong. Certainly there are those who drop out of school, only to live with marginal employment and the social concerns that come with poverty. While the reasons for that tragic scenario are complex and the answers even more so, leaving school is not necessarily the death knell of ambition. We at eLemenT have left that industrial model of education behind, only to discover time and time again a blossoming of confidence and excitement for learning that comes when a student is allowed to learn in the way that best fits. With the pace that produces understanding and with subjects that are fueled by his or her natural curiosity, students thrive. We have been amazed at what kids accomplish when they no longer fear being left behind, being teased and labeled, and in essence, fearing failure. Though we hate it, we know that schools create winners and losers. We refuse to accept that loser status forced onto students. At eLemenT, we hold onto the creed that Fairness is not everyone getting the same things, but rather Fairness is everyone getting what they need to be successful. Sometimes, that means leaving the methods of traditional school behind.

Our grandfather guest later admitted that he was himself, a failure at academics in school. Despite that, he went on to be a hugely successful entrepreneur. Once he considered how little benefit his public education had actually been, a smile crept onto his face and his eyes lit up. I am thinking he caught our vision. Sometimes the most vital step to success is to quit school.