An Experiment in a High School

I assembled an “English” class in the spring semester of 1972 in an effort to employ and examine theory and techniques drawn from modern psychoanalysis in teaching. The class was made up of seven eleventh and twelfth grade boys who shared a reputation for being the most undisciplined underachievers in the school. Owing to their extreme resistance to the usual mode of learning, they had systematically alienated themselves from regular classes. They were noted for consistently poor grades and failures. They had marked intolerance for any frustration, and frequently they would be reported to the office for such unruly and disruptive behavior as fighting and cursing. They were freqently absent, and the teachers, for the most part, welcomed their absence with a sense of relief. Prior to this term each of these students had been suspended from regular classes for a variety of infractions at least once, and most were chronic suspendees. As they were all in the eleventh and twelfth grades, English was the primary class requirement in their programs. At this point they had completed the basic requirements for the general course of study for a high school diploma and were completing their elective subjects and English to finish school.

The decision to place them in this English class was determined by their behavior, which could only be described as resistive. I planned to use the technique of joining resistances wherever possible; to this end I provided a learning setting that was really not a class