Dispatch from an American Classroom: I Wasn't Prepared for Pregnant 12 Year-Olds
If you were to start on Independence Avenue from where it splits off from Pennsylvania Avenue NE at Third Street and head east, as you get to RFK Stadium you loop around the circle and then cross the Anacostia River on East Capitol Street. A few miles later on your left is an aging junior high school building that houses a non-profit charter Middle School and companion High School. I teach in the former.
Knowing several of the staff, and having visited the school previously, I thought I was prepared. I knew the population was very much at-risk. I had no idea.
I teach 7th grade Social Studies - Ancient World History. The students are all African-American, from Wards 7 & 8, the poorest parts of the District of Columbia. We are just several hundred yards inside the District from its boundary with Prince George's County Maryland. The students are supposed to wear uniform shirts, different by grade, which most of them do. I knew that many came from families that at best struggle, some from single parent households, some living with relatives other than their parents. Still I was not prepared. I did not expect a small 7th grade girl who walked into my room - she is due to give birth on January 23, when she will still be 12 years old.
I am told that she will be the 2nd 7th grader to give birth this year.
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I teach less than five miles from our nation's Capitol, in a setting that remains invisible to far too many who make policy based on flawed and incomplete data without ever seeing the reality of the children.
more ... http://www.alternet.org/economy/dispatch-american-classroom-i-wasnt-prepared-pregnant-12-year-olds?paging=off
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