To the Juno(s) out there

Today I met a teacher of a continuation school. All her students are pregnant or young mothers ranging from age 13 to 18. These continuation schools are looked down upon because of their low test scores. Sometimes there is talk about shutting them down to “mainstream” the kids, i.e. send the students back to regular school where they will have to focus on the academic subjects like regular kids. But what is regular about a 13 year old who has an equally young boy friend and is living with a 1 year old, having to care and provide for the child with whatever money their families may have? Is Math that important right now for them? When I was working with grassroots education in rural areas, there would always be a two pronged approach - teach the young ones basics and teach the adults skills. Why can this not be true for urban areas? These kids have had their youth snatched from them. They have been thrown out into the real world to become adults. Closing our eyes to this will not make it better. The time for basics is gone. Before all the basics might get covered, they are out on the streets, hating school and getting into trouble.

They need life skills even more than regular school work...because they don't attend all grades...because they cannot concentrate on studies....because before learning to draw a graph, they need to know that the decisions they make will affect at least two lives. They don't need moralizing; they don't need people to tell them what they did wrong. They need new hope for life and skills to cope with their new lives.

The teacher knows and understands all this, but very rarely does anyone - Life Skills providers or folks from the school district - go out into the field and talk to the teachers who know the real concerns. She also shared with me how the support of the kids’ families makes a huge difference. Many of these girls have lived with the boyfriends’ parents. And two families came together to raise what many would call a 'mistake'. Kudos to such families. Unfortunately, not everyone is Juno.