Real Lives: Eleven Teenagers Who Don't Go to School. - book reviews

Whole Earth Review, Winter, 1993 by Howard L. Rheingold

The Teenage Liberation Handbook is frightening and threatening. what happens to teenagers who take Grace Llewellyn's advice to "quit school and get a real life and education"?

Llewellyn's follow-up book, Real Lives, collects the stories of eleven teenagers who took her advice. Their eloquence speaks volumes for their education. --HLR

Kyla Wetherell, 16 Corvallis, Oregon Rising Out

At the time I wrote the following journal entries, I was still in public high school, at the top of the junior class, editor of the school newspaper, former exchange student to Thailand, active club member, etc. -- not a person anyone would expect to drop out of school.

Monday January 6, 1992

After my first day back at school, I want more than anything to just leave -- even possibly to be finished with formal education altogether. I can think of no good reason why I should remain in a situation I loathe, except long-run financial problems. There simply is no motivation to continue.

Not that school today was anything out of the ordinary, but I resented the ordinary more. I resented sitting, conforming, and being told what to do by teachers who pride themselves on being the authority. I resented that force which kept me inside classrooms, doing and learning absolutely nothing when I could see the sun outside, and I especially resented having to work up the motivation to try to motivate the newspaper staff after a numbing day of school....

What I want to do is drop out, but what I probably will do is graduate a semester early. I'll have enough credits by the semester break next year, and I can use the time during the second semester to study on my own, read, write, and just do what I want to do.

Even just one more year of boredom and disgust seems like an eternity, though. There just isn't any reason why I should have to sit in school all day -- or, for that matter, why anyone should.

Monday January 27, 1992

My first thought this morning when the alarm went off at 6:30 was, "Why should I get up? There's nothing to look forward to in a day of school."

But I did get up. It was the first day of second semester so I went to my new classes. Speech is going to be one of those phony "let's get to know each other" classes. Physics used to be the only class I liked, but now there are so many students in the class that I wouldn't know if I was enjoying it. Health -- eight years of the same required curriculum, this class speaks for itself. Advanced algebra is just math -- I'll do as little of the busywork as I can all semester and then memorize a few equations at the end so I can pass the final. Short story writing -- I was really excited about this class, but I should have guessed that school can turn any subject into just another waste of time -- another class to contemplate skipping every day. We're "learning" for the zillionth time what verbs and adjectives are. Then there's advanced placement U.S. History. There's nothing advanced about this class. For the first couple weeks we wrote essays and held discussions, but since then the bulk of the class has been boring lectures and time-consuming worksheets of busywork. I don't know what I think of the newspaper anymore. I certainly put more effort into it than any other part of school, but it's becoming tedious and because it represents the school there are limitations everywhere.

I spent the next few weeks in school, dreading each day, becoming more and more bitter, and letting it drain all the energy and excitement out of me....

I'd sit in algebra class making all kinds of plans, thinking about biking across the country or just looking up something interesting in the library, but by the time that last bell rang I was usually so disgusted and drained that I just went home and did nothing, or went out with friends and tried to forget it all.

By February, I was taking every possible short cut in school. I switched my schedule around, and talked about graduating early and resigning as editor. I was searching for a positive way out and finally found it on a Monday morning break when my newspaper advisor told me he had a book I would want to "steal away" from him.... By the end of the day I was pretty sure I would quit school. What really convinced me was the revelation that I didn't need a high school diploma to go to a good college or do any number of other things. I sat down with my mom that evening and tried to explain it all very carefully -- why I wanted to leave school, that it wouldn't ruin my future, and what I wanted to do instead. I think she was much more relieved than she was worried (since she knew what a negative impact school was having on me), and she gave me her total support.

I spent that week reading the book, thinking about it and talking to people. Amazingly enough, I couldn't find even one good reason why I should keep wasting my time in school. This is not to say, of course, that I had no doubts. A few times I was momentarily stunned with an uncertainty about my life and future that I had not previously had to face, but it was more a reaction to such a big change than it was a logical concern.