1: Narrative Research and Sociological Poetry

This is a book of stories. Stories unfinished, stories still taking shape. Stories hopeful and heartbreaking at the same time. I’ve spent the last few years talking with young people about their lives, their school experiences, their decisions to drop out of high school, and their ideas for improving secondary education. My journey started with Ivan.¹ Ivan is my oldest child’s friend. One day, as a junior in high school, my son came home and announced that Ivan had dropped out. I was stunned! Over the next couple of months, I had a series of conversations with friends who are teachers at the high school. I would ask, “What happened to Ivan?” And, in one way or another, they would tell me, “Ivan’s just the tip of the iceberg. Kids are dropping like flies.” Their responses drove me to the New York State Education Department website and to the discovery that Comprehensive High School² really did have a “dropout problem.”³