California Educator

A " ccording to Positive Devi ance theor y, students, teachers and school administrators already have the answers they need to address adverse problems like the high school dropout rate. I find that very empowering," said Palm Springs Teachers Association President Beverly Bricker, one of 45 participants at an infor mational workshop about the Positive Deviance Initiative conducted May 28 in Orange County by CTA's Institute for Teaching (IFT). "Positive Deviance rests on two important assumptions," said workshop facilitator Mark Mun ger, an independent Positive De viance consultant associated with Boston's Tufts University. "First, it proposes that solutions to com munity problems already exist within the community of interest, and second, that it is possible to find successful solutions to prob lems before all of the underlying causes are addressed." "Positive Deviance presuppos es that in every high school there are students, teachers, families, other school employees, and members of the larger commu nity who are helping to make some students successful," said Munger. "The emphasis is to identify the behaviors and prac tices that keep students in school and then to encourage the rest of the student community to adopt them." "We've become experts on dropouts," said retired CTA em ployee and former IFT manager Yale Wishnick, citing the more typical approach of trying to de 22 California Educator | 22-40 June.09.indd 22 june termine what causes students to drop out of school. "What we need to do instead is become ex perts on why kids stay in school. It's a very different approach." A pilot project to reduce the dropout rate at Merced High School in California's Central Val ley is the most recent of IFT's projects aimed at bringing new approaches to school change. Supported by a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foun dation, the pilot project is the first of its kind in California to incor porate the Positive Deviance Ini tiative's principles. "We believe the potential of Positive Deviance to reduce high school dropouts is vast and largely untapped," said IFT Manager/Program Director Dick Gale. "We have so many kids with potential who aren't successful in the classroom," said Merced High School math teacher Sheila Whit ley, whose grant proposal rose to the top for IFT funding — among scores submitted from schools throughout the state for the pilot project. According to 200607 school year figures (the most re cent data available from the Cali fornia Department of Education) nearly 13 percent of students at Merced High School are expected to drop out of school before grad uating. "These are good kids, but they are falling through the cracks," said Whitley. The IFT grant will provide training for Merced High School teachers to interview highachiev ing students there, identify their successful traits and create a plan to replicate those traits throughout the school system. Teachers will CTA photo by Bill Guy Program helps at-risk students focus on positives also interview and incorporate feedback from Merced commu nity members. Munger believes that the answers to the pertinent questions lie within the Merced community now, and that if the project is successful, Merced High School will see a measurable change in the dropout rate within the next year or two. In addition to the recent infor mational workshop in Orange County for participants from Southern California, IFT presented a similar workshop at CTA's Bur lingame headquarters for Northern California participants April 2. "I was so impressed with the teenage students from Merced High School who related that one of the main reasons they have stayed in school is the interest and encouragement of a special teacher or teachers," said Burlingame work shop participant Dixie Johansen, a Ravenswood Teachers Association member and cochair of CTA's Eth ABOVE: Attendees of the informational workshop (right to left), Inglewood Teachers Association member David Brown; Merced High School student Christian Arroyo; and Mark Munger, an independent consultant and senior associate of Valeocon Management Consulting, in a discussion about the Positive Deviance Initiative. nic Minority Affairs Committee. "The Positive Deviance work shop exceeded my expectations," said participant Bricker. "The ex planations, the guest student speakers' ideas and the respect giv en to all participants made the day an encouraging one for me and my six colleagues from our Palm Springs TA local who accompa nied me. We came away energized with the idea that Positive Devi ance is an approach that we hope to replicate in our schools, too." Bill Guy 2009 6/4/09 2:01:20 PM

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