Positive Deviance Wisdom Series, Number 2, pp. 1-8. Boston, Tufts University: Positive Deviance Initiative
While all 24 students in Ramón’s first grade class await their birthdays, they are unaware of how bleak their future might be. Within two years, by the time they are in third grade, it is likely that 5 out of the 24 will have stopped going to school. By the sixth grade, another 7 out of the remaining 20 will have dropped out.1 In 2000, a first grader in San Pedro and, more generally, in Argentina’s rural province of Misiones would have had a 3 in 4 chance of getting to third grade and a 1 in 2 chance of making it past the sixth grade. Ramón’s entering class of 24 would have become a class of 12 students by seventh grade. Ramón’s entering class of 24 would have become a class of 12 students by seventh grade.
What explains this sharp drop in school enrollment rates in Misiones? Why do so many Ramóns drop out of school, missing out on learning basic literacy and numeracy skills? The answers, in part, lie in the traditional roles that young children in Misiones play in subsistence agriculture. For instance, Ramón may drop out of school:
To help his parents plant cassava branches, a staple food in Northeastern Argentina.
To help with the tobacco harvest. Children like Ramón are well equipped to pick tobacco leaves
as one has to squat low in order to pluck them from the bottom, keeping the upper ones intact.
To help with weeding, a non-complex task which children carry out with relative ease. Weeding, much like tobacco harvesting, requires long hours of squatting in the fields.
In essence, young children in Misiones play a key role in generating family livelihoods.For them, and their parents, school attendance is a relatively low priority. Survival takes precedence over education. However, not every elementary school in Misiones has high dropout rates. Some schools do better.
Consider Mr. García’s school. Mr. García is a teacher in
a school in Misiones which has higher student retention rates. After school hours, Mr. García can often be seen at his students’ home sipping a cup of mate, a local beverage made of herbs. He may ask parents about the well-being of the family pig that appears to be pregnant and about the tobacco harvest: “How much are they selling it for per kilo?” Mr. García may encourage Manuel and Lydia, the parents of Sylvia whom he knows on a first name basis, to continue sending their child to school. “Education is a great equalizer,” he emphasizes. “Sylvia is a good student and has a bright future ahead.”
The boys and girls in Mr. García’s class, as well as their parents, know that Mr. García believes in their potential and will go the extra mile to encourage their continued presence in school, even when they are absent.
In Misiones, teachers like Mr. García are beacons of hope for the Ramóns and Sylvias, who otherwise would not make it past third grade.
DEFIANT WELCOME
“Señor, Argentina no es Vietnam (Sir, Argentina is not Vietnam). Your Positive Deviance approach that may have worked in Vietnam will not work here in Misiones! We, the teachers, haven’t been paid in months. The parents of these children who drop-out are worthless and disinterested. And you Señor, you know nothing of our situation or problems,” noted a senior female teacher. Other teachers, with crossed arms and defiant looks, nodded in agreement.
“Señora, lo que usted dice es absolutamente la verdad!” (Madam, what you say is absolutely true), replied Jerry
Sternin, co-founder of the Positive Deviance Initiative. “It is also true that some of you, sitting in this room at
this very moment, have been able to retain over 85% of your students. So, yes, I know nothing about your situation. But I do know that the solution to your problem already lurks in this room.”2
After a long pause, an elder teacher noted, “Yes, Señor, that is correct.” She added, “but we are so often blamed for student drop-outs by both the parents and school administrators.”
“Is that the case every time?” asked Jerry. “At every school?” There was a long pause. Some teachers leaned in. Some appeared to drop their frowns. Some seemed to be smiling.
“PD is not a magic bullet,” Jerry noted with humility, “but by looking at elementary schools in Misiones that
are able to retain and graduate more students without access to any special resources, we might get somewhere.”
More folded arms began to open and Jerry’s suggestions received affirmation…
