Closely related to the teacher who ranted about the failures of parents in the last post, David Brooks recently wrote about the lasting damage to people who suffer from childhood traumas.
He writes about a recent study that found that people who suffered from childhood abuse, had incareated or mentally ill parents or whose parents were divorced were more likely to become alchoholics, try suicide, have sex before 15, and get cancer. The childhood abuse variable makes sense, because I watch Dr. Drew when I'm at the gym, but I was surprised that divorce had that big of an impact on people.
He said that the 3/4rds of the kids who attend the KIPP schools drop out of college.
Schools in the Knowledge Is Power Program, or KIPP, are among the best college prep academies for disadvantaged kids. But, in its first survey a few years ago, KIPP discovered that three-quarters of its graduates were not making it through college. It wasn’t the students with the lower high school grades that were dropping out most. It was the ones with the weakest resilience and social skills. It was the pessimists.
I am fascinated with the KIPP schools which help to override the parental and community pressures through massive educational intervention. A friend teaches at a charter school in Newark with a similar philosophy.
My guess is that the KIPP kids are having problems in college, not because of the inevitability of their childhood experiences, but because they need the same massive oversight in college that they receive in high school. But colleges don't do that.
Apt. 11d 
laura,
I agree with you. Having a family network of support really makes a difference your whole life, even if you don’t think you’re relying on it. You can, with intensive resources (money, trained personnel) provide that through school, but you have to keep it going through life. Even having a parent to run your class schedule by, or who can talk you through a terrible professor, can make a big difference. I think, to an 18 year old, knowing someone cares about you and is paying attention if you struggle can keep you enough on track to make a difference between getting through school or not.
I also think in particular that kids who have chaotic home lives respond well to strict structure at school or elsewhere, and often need it to be successful in a way kids with less chaotic lives don’t. My primary school was modeled in a way kind of similar to KIPP, where the principle was that school was a safe structured environment for kids who didn’t have that anywhere else, and our school was at the time touted as a national success story for educating low-income kids. Our lives were micromanaged and monitored down to the last detail, but being so strict about so much allowed for what would have been chaotic energy to be channeled into the right sort of fun and creative outlets. Students complained, but they also thrived.
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Man all your posts are connecting with me today.
I am a Formerly Gifted Child(tm) and had amazing education at a private high school for nerds and was on a pretty cool career trajectory.
Then I dropped out of university due to PTSD from childhood abuse (extended family, but my nuclear one had its issues) & complications thereof. I spent my personal time in my late 20s coughing up trauma and working in therapy. I lost at least the equivalent of 5 years of regular, happy career-building life to all that – treading water to stay afloat. Therapy cost DH and I over $25k.
Which is okay; I mean other people have cancer and don’t get to do that at all. I am not complaining, just sharing. It’s a huge drag in one’s life. I’ve seen a lot of people go under to it.
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“not because of the inevitability of their childhood experiences, but because they need the same massive oversight in college that they receive in high school”: Laura, don’t you think that many of these students need the massive oversight precisely because of their childhood experiences? I’m not sure they can be separated as distinct factors.
I had a high school friend with a chaotic and abusive home life who earned a full scholarship to college, which he managed to lose after the first 18 months of school. He had no family support and no real support at all beyond a handful of friends who had scattered to different schools and different states. He has a wife and career and degree now, but it took him thrice as long as it might have if the structure and support had been there.
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Sounds to me that what might be needed is continuing KIPP-style support that has been modified for college.
JennG – I “jokingly” call that kind of a childhood as “the gift that keeps on giving”. There are so many different echos throughout a lifetime from childhood abuse, whether it was emotional or physical. Add in the challenges of trying to jump social/economic classes and you have a HUGE mountain to climb.
I think it can be done, and many do, but the work of it shouldn’t be underestimated or ignored. Hence why I mentioned in the KIPP post that perhaps ongoing support is required. Or at least an awareness of the services available to provide that support.
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I loved the book “Work Hard, Be Nice” (about the founding of the first KIPP schools.) The biggest surprises of the book were how they randomly stumbled upon Harriet Ball and her techniques, how crazy and obstructionist school administrators are, and how they eschewed pretty much all of the existing education scholarship out there.
I’m with @Sandra – folks who are the first in their families ever to go to college could benefit from “continuing KIPP-style support.” It’s at least in part an issue of a lack of social capital.
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“Even having a parent to run your class schedule by…”
Years ago when I was a Russian TA, I had a struggling undergraduate student (a chemistry major, I believe) who had been allowed to sign up for three or four different language courses at the same time. It was a crazy assortment–Russian, Hebrew, and one or two totally unrelated languages. It was insane, not least because she was supposed to be a science major.
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“same massive oversight in college that they receive in high school”
…that many – most? – UML kids receive from their parents and continue to receive long after college.
At least in my world, parents provide moral support, money and guidance long after age 18, support that in key to helping kids choose majors and classes and fund tuition and find internships and deal with a roommate who barfs on your laptop and cope with being away from home.
My stable middle-class college-educated parents expected me to fend for myself after I graduated high school and it took me six years and some serious missteps to finish my degree. It’s only gotten harder for kids without parental help.
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My parents still provide moral support and guidance (not money, but, really that’s the easiest to replace).
I’ve always wondered how much you can provide that kind of support through formal mentoring programs, and how much is just primal biology that can’t be replicated without the parental relationship.
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I was raised upper middle class but my family was mostly in crisis while I was in college — and everyone was so focussed on my sister’s drug issues that no one ever asked me what courses I was taking, helped me with summer plans, finding internships, etc. I kind of assumed that was the norm, that once you were 18 you were more or less on your own. I’m always amazed now to see the degree to which parents are still involved in their kids lives once they go to college. Personally. I’m not sure where the line is between being supportive and interfering. I agree that kids who get NO support are at a real disadvantage, but I’m not sure that the solution is to figure out how to provide everyone with a hovering quasi-parent who leaps in to solve all your problems. I know that many of our local churches run tutoring programs and help with college application programs for minority students. Maybe the solution is to encourage our volunteers not to just sign the graduation card and wave good-bye, but to call, write, text and continue to provide some support.
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“Maybe the solution is to encourage our volunteers not to just sign the graduation card and wave good-bye, but to call, write, text and continue to provide some support.”
I think this is what matters, not having someone “solve all your problems” (well, and stepping in when the problems are getting steep, like drugs, alcohol, serious depression, . . . .)
And, I think people (all people, but children especially) need to feel that someone cares about them, cares about how their doing, their plans an hopes. I can’t imagine what it would be like to go through college (or any other important life event) without feeling that someone other than you cares about what happens. Parents sometimes care too much, but not caring at all is worse.
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