by Calder Svendsen
I recently needed a plumber and was surprised when he showed up with an apprentice in tow — one of my former students. The young man had dropped out the year after taking my class, a decision that surprised no one who knew him well.
He was capable, witty, and clever enough to recognize that nothing in his senior year of high school was going to push him in a direction he wanted to go. Rather than spend another year in coursework he found irrelevant, he left school and, without a clear plan, was corralled into his father’s plumbing business — his dad’s way of ensuring he had a path forward instead of drifting without one. Now, he’s on track to be fully certified in his trade, and by the time his former classmates are still figuring out their next steps — whether in college or elsewhere — he may already be earning more than any of his former teachers.
But for all his intelligence and work ethic, he couldn’t fit into the rigid mold of high school. Like many of his peers, he felt his time there was more of an obligation than a meaningful experience — something he had to endure rather than something that guided him toward his future. Dropping out seemed like the only real choice he had left, the last bit of agency left to a sixteen-year-old who had already learned everything he felt was valuable in a traditional classroom.
Now, even with a GED, he carries the stigma of being an underachiever, as if leaving school to pursue a trade makes him less successful than those who stayed.
