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D. SCHREIBER, (Ed.): Profile of the School Dropout. New York: Vintage Books, 1968. 380 pages, $7.95.
S. LICHTER, E. RAPIEN, F. SEIBERT, and M. SKLANSKY: The Drop-Outs. New York: The Free Press, 1962. 315 pages, $6.50
L. PERVIN, L. REIK, and W. DALRYMPLE (Eds.): The College Dropout and the Utilization of Talent. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1966.260 pages, $6.50.
IN A RECENT MOVIE1 a group of people, because of some obscure curse, cannot leave a party that seems endless. They cannot change their relationships to themselves, and to each other, because they persist in seeing life in the same way. They therefore deteriorate despairingly, and some die. When they agree to change, they are released.
One ex-student and now a patient of mine wished, before he dropped out of a West Coast college noted for its ultra-high academic standards, that he could force his government class to stay indefinitely in its classroom, so that by thus confronting each other over the course of infinite time (I suppose like a group therapy marathon), some meaningful, non-defensive interchange between themselves—teacher included—and their subject matter would take place.
It is only in this sense, the framework of relevency and authenticity, that the issue of dropping out begins to be comprehended