Schoolcentrism: A Barrier to Success for At-Risk Youngsters

This paper examines the lack of familiarity that teachers and administrators have with the communities in which low-income students live and stresses the need to create linkages between the school and the outside world to help at-risk students succeed academically. There is a serious flaw in most community-oriented approaches and many contemporary efforts are limited because they are derived from an exclusively school-focused perspective and thus represent "schoolcentric" thinking. Several situations are presented that depict common, well-meaning attempts of educators to consider the community and its relationship to schooling. The schoolcentric character of these efforts is discussed. The pattern of schoolcentrism is endemic and the ultimate solution is to change the paradigms in which the child is redefined in terms of his or her dual socialization within two valid systems: the community and the school. Such a change requires a recognition of the competencies and talents that the culturally divergent child brings into the school and a realization that the child's primary relationships outside the school have educational relevance. (GLR)