ACADEMIA Letters

Alternative Education; is someone crazy about your young

people?
Craig Trevor Hansen, University of Applied Research and Development

Introduction
Urie Bronfenbrenner proposed (Bronfenbrenner, 1991) that in order for a young person to de-
velop emotionally and reach their full potential, they need a strong emotional attachment to a
trusted person who is committed to the young person’s success, i.e. someone who was equally
crazy about them. This proposition is echoed by Larry Brendtro (Brendtro, 2006), who said
young people need to feel that society is a place of safety and welcome for themselves, a
place where they can actively participate with a closely-knitted community of encouraging
adults who help them solve problems in their pursuit of resilience (particularly after adverse
childhood experiences), as they pursue personal agency (Haffejee & Theron, 2019). As par-
ents have increasingly focused on their own needs at the cost of their children, “an increasing
proportion of young people know the hollow emptiness of loneliness, the searing suffering
of loss, the icy silence of abandonment, whether physical or emotional” (Brokenleg, 2014,
12); young people are without an adult connected to them who is committed to supporting,
encouraging and seeking to draw the best out of them.

Disengaged Young People

In 2020 the number of New Zealand young people disengaged from schooling sky-rocketed
as COVID19 forced community locked-downs and school support services for the 30,000
chronically absent (students not at school at least three days every two weeks of school) were

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Craig Trevor Hansen, craig@uard.ac.nz

Citation: Hansen, C.T. (2021). Alternative Education; is someone crazy about your young people? Academia
Letters, Article 2766. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2766.

1
closed or sadly underfunded (Cheng, 2021) as lockdowns relaxed. This reduced the number
of adults reaching out to support young people, to offer support and find ways to increase
engagement with learning. As the country repeated its lockdown measures and the pandemic
persisted in its impact in 2021, the depth of truancy was labeled a crisis by members of New
Zealand’s parliament (Patterson, 2021) and an inquiry was launched into the reasons behind
the now 60,000 students classified as chronically absent, noting close to 40 percent of pupils
are not attending school regularly. So, why do students disengage from school, drop out,
and increasingly have poor life outcomes such as criminal offending, teen pregnancy, lack of
education (Sherwood, 2015), and employment opportunities?

An Ignored Opportunity
Eight years ago, the government-funded ‘Primary Awards’ produced a clear and compelling
explanation (Healey, 2013) that students needed a number of strategies and tactics to stay
engaged from with schooling that included the following seven areas:

1. behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement,

2. physical attendance and connectedness,

3. choice of learning experiences, fun, and teachers who overtly demonstrated they cared,

4. a sense of belonging for students, through orientations & relationship building, as they
transitioned from grade 6 to further education,

5. the development of trust between students and students-to-teachers in school and out of
school environments,

6. early identification of students who struggle academically and/or emotionally to receive

extra support, and,

7. training in self-reflection, skills in cooperation, and ways to proactively seek support.

Helping Young People Find an Adult Crazy About Them

It seems that in eight years since Healey’s report to educational leaders in New Zealand, many
students have not experienced a schooling system that fulfills the seven areas above. In order
to provide a safe place for disengaged students to connect with teachers and support staff who
cared about them, Panama Road School in Mt Wellington (Auckland, New Zealand-Aotearoa)

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Craig Trevor Hansen, craig@uard.ac.nz

Citation: Hansen, C.T. (2021). Alternative Education; is someone crazy about your young people? Academia
Letters, Article 2766. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2766.

2
established an alternative education program called ‘Tipu Whare’, the place of growth in Te
Reo Maori, the native language. Tipu Whare and its team of educators focused on four distinct
areas bring together the word of Healey (2013), (Brendtro, 2006), and (Brokenleg, 2014):

• Belonging,

• Mastery,

• Independence, and,

• Generosity.

Belonging is enhanced by the trust given, respect is shared when each student operates from
an understanding of the hopes and needs of others. To this end, Tipu Whare is a place of laugh-
ter, curiosity, and connection (Panama Road School, 2020). Positive thinking is emphasized
while acknowledging that there is a correct time for everything, in its place, with supportive
adults training and correcting students from a place of positive expectation. Educators are vul-
nerable and cry with those who mourn and celebrate the small wins with everyone. Positive
feelings are shared and positive behavior is grown through cooperation, including both calm
and energetic discussions with trusted adults leading the way through modeling acceptable
behaviors (that is, positive behavior interventions, according to Resa, 2019). Students master
their learning with a thinking cycle where thoughts lead to emotions, emotions lead to actions,
actions lead to results, results create new thoughts. Students are trained in reflection, learning
to respond to situations rather than react out of fear or anger. In Tipu Whare, goal setting
is impactful when combined with habit development. Goal-supporting habits build indepen-
dence through valuing each student’s connection to others, clarifying problems with a solution
orientation, and learning to restore relationships with healthy conflict resolution with trusted
adults. Correction is always sandwiched between multiple layers of support. Tipu Wahre ed-
ucators know that when students own responsibility for their problems and solutions, they can
experience hope and purpose. Having a sense of purpose enables generosity.
When young people find an adult who is crazy about them, willing to commit time, en-
ergy, resources, and positive input towards them over the long term, the disengaged become
reinvigorated about learning, the disconnected find relationships that matter and the positive
life outcomes blossom where once there was isolation and anger (Larson & Brendtro, 1999).
The more schools, and more importantly educational leaders, focus on the four pillars of the
Tipu Whare alternative education program, the disengaged young people there will be trying
to find their way in society.

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Craig Trevor Hansen, craig@uard.ac.nz

Citation: Hansen, C.T. (2021). Alternative Education; is someone crazy about your young people? Academia
Letters, Article 2766. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2766.

3
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Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Craig Trevor Hansen, craig@uard.ac.nz

Citation: Hansen, C.T. (2021). Alternative Education; is someone crazy about your young people? Academia
Letters, Article 2766. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2766.

4
 https://www.otago.ac.nz/law/research/journals/otago451226.pdf

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Craig Trevor Hansen, craig@uard.ac.nz

Citation: Hansen, C.T. (2021). Alternative Education; is someone crazy about your young people? Academia
Letters, Article 2766. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2766.