Brodie is an articulate 14-year-old currently in Year 9. He attends his local high school in the northern suburbs of Melbourne with a student population of over 1400. Brodie is the child of migrant parents who have expectations that he will finish school and find a ‘good’ career pathway for himself.
Brodie is comfortable talking and sharing his story about his Middle Years schooling experience which has not been an easy passage for him. He says this is a crucial time for students, especially in their early teen years, which can make or break the school journey for young people.
The lost years of lock-down during the pandemic has seriously impacted on young people his age, according to Brodie. It was a time of hit and miss for students his age and the loss of social connection has left a lasting impact on many. He was excited to return to school after restrictions were lifted because he felt that was a place where he valued the sense of community and being able to chat and connect with friends face to face instead of the artificial on-line experience.
Brodie was especially excited to begin high school and looked forward to Year 7. However, after the initial excitement and novelty wore off, he started to see things around him that he found difficult to navigate. Brodie thought that high school was a far more judgmental place – both from other students and teachers. He feels strongly that teenagers, especially, have lost the ability to be socially respectful of each other partly due to their earlier experiences and the impact of social media. He thinks there are more mental health issues for young people and that concerns him.
In that first year of high school (Year 7) he found the work quite easy but at the same time adapting to different ways of teaching and learning difficult. Teachers had different styles, different expectations, and most importantly different levels of interest in students. This environment became a challenge for Brodie. Brodie remarked, “school had become more about the work than the learning” for him. He thought that some of the methods of teaching were rigid and often his classes were just given ‘busy work’: work sheets, power points, questions and answers from textbooks. He started to withdraw.
Brodie says, “when I started to notice this about school I started to feel less motivated to go. I just didn’t see the relevance or the point of it all”. This impacted Brodie’s attendance and in Year 8 this was at a low point for him. His drive to come to school was ‘compromised’. He indicates that students learn differently but these differences, in his eyes, are not being catered for. Brodie says, “I felt that learning in class was robotic. Some teachers presented information in, what I considered to be, an old-fashioned way. We live in a technological age but that doesn’t seem to be factored into our current education. Nothing was inspiring me. Instead, I felt that my thinking capacity was diminishing.”
Brodie’s attendance at school significantly dropped off. His mother was sympathetic to his concerns but at the same time insisted that he continue to make a go of it. He achieved good results in primary school but in his first two years of high school this started to nosedive. Having said that, Brodie is also critical of the grind of assessments and testing that drives education at the moment. He knew that he could do better at tests but was resisting this challenge because he didn’t think it was really an indication of what he was capable of. Test/assessment results don’t always relate to ability and shouldn’t be taken at face value, Brodie thinks. “If we are given multiple options to ‘free range’ or explore our strengths in open ended tasks, imagine how that could change our experiences at school.”
Brodie suggests that we learn basic literacy and numeracy skills in primary school but by secondary school students should be developing their “self”, learning to think independently and be offered a greater breadth of what is possible. Having options for young people is crucial to allow them to find what they are good at or interested in for their future. Brodie did not feel that this was happening for him. He felt he had no control over what was happening to him in his educational setting. His mother would drop him at school or see him off in the morning from home but often he just didn’t make it to school at all. He avoided attending most days and the more he stayed away the more disenfranchised he felt. He became despondent.
In Year 9 something happened which has changed Brodie’s trajectory and his outlook for the future. Teachers, one in particular, recognised Brodie’s potential and understood that his level of disengagement at school was not because he was ‘just a naughty kid’ or due to the lack of his ability but because his needs were not being met. There was, for a while, a lack of understanding by the adults around him that something needed to change dramatically for Brodie to set him back on to a course of success. Brodie has been given an opportunity to become part of the school’s extension class. It is this provision of agency for Brodie that has reinvigorated his interest in school and his motivation to attend and achieve. He has made a greater connection with his teachers and has forsaken friendship groups for the chance to be part of this class. He feels more emotionally and behaviourally involved in his learning for the first time and this is driving future aspirations for him.
What changed for Brodie? Firstly, it is because he feels that his teachers believe in him. He feels that finally his strengths are being nurtured and extended. He has a voice and is being listened to. He feels welcome. Secondly, he is being afforded opportunities to thrive, to be creative and to find relevance in his learning.