On Absenteeism and Presenteeism
When I first arrived at the high school to help improve attendance, I came with a saying from Woody Allen that I thought would help: 85% of Success is Showing Up. I printed it large enough to fill a whole page and had it laminated and displayed above our desk and on our attendance bulletin board.
As the first year drew on I heard complaint after complaint from students about how boring school was for them. If we could just get these kids to come to school I knew we could give them something worth being there for. One student I worked with was impulsive in speech and behavior. Curse words and phrases flew out of his mouth like sneezes from someone with allergies. Yet he did not have turrets. He came from a large family and had learned to fend for himself after his father died and his mother became engrossed in her own life which did not leave much room for him. His English teacher sent frequent pink slips to the guidance office about his behavior which was often intrusive in word and action. When I learned that he was one of 11 people living in a two bedroom apartment I understood why he would not have a sense of boundaries between himself and others. And when boundaries are not respected irritations mount.
One day he came to me preoccupied with an assignment. He had to write about a work of literature. I asked him how things were going in that class. He began to talk about himself as having a red demon inside him that sometimes made him just want to be bad. I listened and thought of something that I had seen on a tee-shirt in Times Square. "In each of us two opposites are at war: good and evil" - Jekyl and Hyde. I told him this and he said. "Yo Mr, that's me!" With that we proceeded to look up the story of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde which he used for his English paper. Several days later his teacher told me she saw a marked improvement in him. She never had to write him up again.
More recently, another teacher came to me and commented about that quote I had posted. "85% of success is showing up? Who said that?" he asked incredulously. We then had a discussion about the low performance of some students who were in school most of the time but were not passing. I knew our job was not finished after getting them in school.
Just two weeks later I found myself at a conference on Men and Depression listening to a CEO of a Fortune 500 company and a state senator talk about their experiences of depression. It was then that someone used the word "presenteeism" along with absenteeism. Absenteeism was a given. But presenteeism? It was a word I first read in a new study on the benefits of laughter yoga to reduce such problems in schools. Presenteeism is showing up for work or school and being unable to be productive because of illness or some other dysfunction. When I saw the teacher again I told him about this and he was elated to know there was a word for what he was trying to describe.
One new student came in looking quite bummed out in the first couple of months of school. He appeared sad, disappointed nearly every time I saw him. His grades were average at best and his attendance was not very good. He was transferred here from another school in another state where he was on the track team. He showed me his performance on a list of his track accomplishments which were impressive having won ribbons and trophies. He ranked near the top of his league and asked if I could help him find a track team near his new home. I feared he would lose interest in school altogether if we could not help him realize his dream.
After several calls and lots of dead ends we finally found not only a team for him but one with the same name as his previous one without any known connection! Not only that, there were students on it who ranked top in the country. From then on this student would come in early to school and was so grateful for finding a team. Not only did his attendance improve and remains in the 90th percentile, but his grades also began to improve.
He was another example of the potential that can be reached when perseverance as well as determination are combined in our efforts to collaborate with our students in helping them understand themselves and realize their dreams.
Rob Marchesani, MSSc, LP, CSNN therapist/supervisor, DOE Bronx High School
