Teaching Isn't For Cowards - Creativity Pays Off In Success! - Jan. 26, 1999 - Newsletters - http://maxpages.com/ljwbthisweek/Alternative_Learning

By Larry J. W. Brown

Published in the "So. Washington County Bulletin" newspaper of Minnesota.

A couple of years ago, while visiting my home town, I pulled into a dusty old North Texas gas station that leaned in the direction of the road, with unpainted clapboard siding and a rusty tin roof. As I got out to pump my gas, a tall slim fellow emerged from inside the building. He grabbed an oil rag that was draped from one of his back pockets and wiped the grease off his hands. "This is a full-service station, I'll get that for you." As he began pumping the gas we exchanged a little chit-chat, and soon we realized we had known each other as friends in Junior High school.

I remembered Bruce as a brilliant student. He had grown up in a large, loving family on a small farm. His dad had been badly disabled in an accident so the five boys and two girls did most of the work. As the family's financial problems grew worse, they lost their farm and moved into an over-crowded house with relatives. Bruce had to get a job to help out, and life got much tougher. Chronically tardy and missing more classes than he attended, he no longer fit into the normal school setting. A frustrated assistant principal suggested he either "get serious about school or get out". Bruce finally dropped out (in the middle of the tenth grade) and never returned.

He had spent years in low paying jobs, chronic unemployment, and finally a divorce. Bruce's life now consisted of running that old gas station, living in a small trailer out back and occasionally seeing his kids on weekends. His smile had faded and the sparkle was gone from his eyes. I couldn't help but wonder how much of his troubled life could have been changed if someone had creatively intervened during that critical time in the tenth grade.

Too often we think of school dropouts and such lost dreams as a story that only describes kids from dysfunctional families. It might shock you if you knew how many dropouts each year are from average, loving and very concerned families.

So what is a distraught and caring parent to do in a situation where their teen-ager can't seem to fit in, yet the traditional school setting has run out of answers? Well, if it hasn't already been suggested, one thing you can do these days is ask about the local Alternative Learning Center!

What is an ALC? It is an arm of the public school system where kids like Bruce could have found the kind of caring and flexible programs that probably would have been able to fit the learning process to his challenges. That's what they seem to do well. There is often even a program to help care for children of a teen-mom while she studies. These kinds of life changing ALC answers are happening every day, silently, without much notice!

An ALC is not a college prep school and it is not touted as one. It is designed to help the Bruce's of the world nail down a decent high school education and give them fairly equal footing on the average high school graduate's diving board of life. It is not a place of prestige, or a place that creates envy in the hearts of those who didn't get to attend. It is a place where many kids, who might otherwise have given up and dropped out of school, can be given a "second chance" at success.

I never could pass on a good story where the definite underdog wins after a long, hard, honorable fight. On Friday, January 22, I witnessed three of these stories at the Cottage Grove ALC mid-year graduation exercises. It was a small ceremony where family, friends and fellow students could gather in the gym and honor those who had "fought a good fight, finished the course, kept the faith". You might be a little surprised to know that each of the three mid-term graduates have already taken serious steps toward higher education, one with a partial scholarship in music, another applying to a nursing college.

Why am I so interested in the ALC programs? One of the fine young graduating seniors this year is my own son! I am extremely proud of him, and thankful to the dedicated and creative folks at Cottage Grove, Minnesota, Alternative Learning Center!

ljwb@mail.com

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