| Since the decade of the twenties, school desertion has been the focus of public debate in Puerto Rico, seen as an educational problem of serious social and economic repercussions. Renegade, loser, quitter, obstacle to progress, worthless social load, are some of the adjectives that can be found describing these youths in the media and in academic research. This work attempts to present a different view of school desertion, from the perspective of an alternative education project involving a group of youths who have experienced being categorized and stigmatized as deserters. To this end, the method of group testimony was used. The group included three teachers, four students and the coordinator of the project. The latter, who is also the author of this thesis, gathered the testimonies and presented the study. Participants shared their views about school, education, teachers and other school workers. The students recounted their steps from the school to the streets, from the streets to the community center and from the center back to the streets. Reflections on this experience led the author to consider these youths as dissidents of official education who resist compliance with the school system and the social project it represents. Through this resistance, they establish a set of new social dynamics, with different code ethics and different ways of relating and of being within the social space they proclaim as their own, where the official margins that define the “school drop-out” are broken. |
