Dear All,
This year, I'm investigating the issue of "transience" or "mobility" with regard to students. Simply put, the issue of students moving from school to school, both during the school year and throughout their educational career.
I was fortunate growing up, in that I had a very stable upbringing. I spent my entire elementary career at one school, from kindergarten to Grade 8, and then I spent my entire secondary career at one High School.
The vast majority of students at my school right now do not share this experience. In fact, less than 8% of our students have this history.
For those that don't know, my High School is our school board's main English as a Second Language School. Students come from all over the world. For most of these students, Forster Secondary School is their first Canadian High School. For many, Forster is their very first school - period!
For the rest, the ones from Canada or the United States, their number of school moves ranges from two (one grade school and one high school) to seventeen (17!)
To this point in my research I've found several papers on the effects this might have on students, and the issues it can present to schools. I've yet to find any research on what schools can do to work with these students to help them.
As my work in this area continues, I'll keep you posted. I've come up with several ideas on my own, but if you've got comments or suggestions, I'm happy to read them.
They may become part of my work! (and I'd be happy to give you credit for any ideas generated.)
Those ideas (both mine and hopefully yours) will be the subject of future posts.
That's it for now,
Dave
I did a quick tally of the schools I went to, and I think I've been to 10 schools before university, plus one year of home-schooling. Mostly I remember the positive experience of seeing new places and meeting new people, which I think has broadened the way I view things as an adult. Moving didn't really seem to affect my academic progress, but I think one area in which I was lacking compared to my peers was forming long-term friendships. It's hard to say if that was because I moved before I could develop lasting connections with people, or because I am innately quite introverted. (I've known people who moved as much as I did, but were very outgoing and seemed to make friends everywhere.) I was a basically a loner, and I think people tend to undervalue the importance social connections have to performance in other areas. I was content being an introvert, and enjoyed school work and creative projects that kept me busy. However, I can see how someone who suddenly has their life uprooted and moves to a new community might become depressed, and it would affect them academically as well as personally.
ReplyDelete