This is sort of a bummer blog. But I wanted to put it in words somewhere.

I'm a high school teacher. I teach at a Title One school in the USA which basically means more than 40% of the population is on free/reduced lunch and are "at-risk" students. In non-PC terms, the kids at my school are poor and come from bad families.

Well it's at the end of the first semester and my 1st class has taken their end of course exams given by the state. I'm pretty pleased with them, 50% passed and I think at least 6 more will pass on the retest (all were only a few points from passing). What sucks about these tests is that EVERYTHING rides on them. The students have to pass them, the teachers are judged by them, then the principals, then the schools, then the district... etc. These kids come from true shit and have to come in and perform on this one test. A LOT of them have improved tremendously, and they really make me happy.

One of the things that hurts me the most with these kids is how illiterate they are. I teach biology so we have a lot of big words that I try so hard to scale down. But I come from a good, middle-class, white family that encouraged education. So when I use the word "characteristic" I figure high schoolers should know it. And they don't. They can't read. They can't write. And they won't tell me. If I didn't have to teach to that damn test, I would teach those kids to read. Because it's so much more important.

I have kids whose lives are shit. One girl in particular has been sticking out in my mind lately. Early on in my class this student was sleeping every day. I would wake her up each class period and tell her not to sleep in my class. Finally one day she tells me she needs to talk to me outside. That's when I knew-- the girl is pregnant. She stands outside and I ask her what's wrong. She tells me "It's embarrassing, can't you just guess" I say "No, you need to tell me what's going on in your own words." Finally, she says "I'm expecting" I said "Okay, you need to take care of yourself and stay in school. Those things are more important now than ever." She broke down crying and told me "My mom says everyone makes mistakes" We went on to have a conversation about how her child is not a mistake, but that she should learn from what happened and take better precautions next time.

Fast forward 6 months, she's due very soon. She hides her pregnancy every day. She always wears big jackets and sweat shirts so no one can see. We talked yesterday. Her "You know it's not long now" Me "Yeah, are you excited?" Her "Not really... just scared..." What the hell am I supposed to do with this? Not only is she 15 and pregnant, she's illiterate and lives in a group home. I've tried my best to help her, but soon she'll drop out of school and the cycle will continue. I do my best to move these kids away from where they come from. But you can't save them all...