Alone in the world

Yesterday, I had the great joy of going out to lunch with a former colleague (she started at school the same year I did, and worked there for 3 years...we actually spent many a days of TFA training curled in a ball, crying on a carpet) and a few of our other colleagues.  We got to sit and just...chat.  There was no pressure about "not talking about school" because we were out and stressed.  No.  We talked about school specifically, education in the broad sense...just everything.

Well, one of my current (fabulous) colleagues gets to talk to most of our former students who have gone off to high school because they love to come back and visit her.  And she got to teach them how to dissect things and I'm sure blow up stuff, so they love her.  I remember loving my 8th grade science teacher the same way...she was young, made us do science that was so ridiculously hard that we were prepared to answer every question in high school, and got us to experiment and understand the most interestingly complex things.  This science teacher does this for our kids, too. 

So we started talking about how many of our former loves have dropped out of school and are on drugs and/or pregnant.  It scares me.  We leave them to go do great things, and then, in high school, with few adults that care, parents that work long hours and think that "teenagers" don't need supervision, and bad influences running rampant around the neighborhood, they become hot messes. 

What can we do? 


How can fiesty K, a girl from my first year who yelled at me so much that we had to have an intervention with her mom, her other teacher, myself, and Language Line, and it came out that K was so mad at her mom for NOT LETTING HER SHAVE HER LEGS that she was taking it out on me, BE PREGNANT?  


HOW?  She had so much potential.  Now she's 14 and pregnant. 

Early childhood education is important, yes, but so is life decision education.  Don't you think that if my babies got educated on being smart, reproductive choices and consequences, and the REAL dangers of drugs and alcohol, that they would make better choices LATER in life? 

We're leaving them alone in this world.