She came to me to drop my class.
"I'm pregnant," she said. "I don't have anyone to talk to and I think my father is going to kick me out of the house."
My heart sank a little bit. I guess it makes me a bad person, but I don't really "bond" with many of my students. I care about them, I do---in a professional way. But I don't want to get into deep heart to hearts, or to become involved in their personal problems. I have colleagues that do that, but I try to steer clear of too much information.
In this case, I took the plunge. It seemed like she really was asking for help.
So, I talked with her, discussed options. And I was left with such a feeling of despair.
This girl is not at the bottom of the barrel (no, the bottom goes down a loooong way) but she is none too bright. She is enrolled at Inner City Community College as a journalism student, but she aint never gonna be a journalist. No, for that you have to be able to think critically, and she has shown absolutely zero capacity for that in my class so far.
She's poor. She's got no support. And it seems like she became pregnant because all her friends are doing it.
Pregnant Patty left my office in no better shape than she entered it. She does not want an abortion---does not believe in it. She could never, ever, ever give a little baby up for adoption. Not ever. Her family does not want her with a baby in tow. Her boyfriends' mother might take her in for a while. I was able to tell her about a few agencies that would offer her assistance.
She is due at the end of May, and has a year left, full time, before she can get a two year degree.
"Don't drop your courses. Finish as much as you can." Maybe this was the only useful advice I could end up giving her. But she would not take it.
"I have too much on my mind for right now," she said. "And don't worry. I am determined. This baby won't slow me down one bit." So. There we are. Bye-bye Pregnant Patty.
Conversations like this one make me wonder why I bother. The Pregnant Patties outnumber the rest of us. We are all f-ing doomed.
For what it's worth, you did what I would do. Listen and offer resources. It's like putting one's finger in the dike, but it is the best we can do.
ReplyDeleteYou did the right thing, Bella. It's so hard sometimes to know where are boundaries are.
ReplyDeleteIt reminded me of one of the greatest RYS posts, Shame of the Sundress.
If you really didn't want her to drop, then you could have told her, "I don't talk to former students. If you stay enrolled in my class, then I'll talk with you. Otherwise, get out."
ReplyDeleteThere's really not much you could have done.
ReplyDeleteIt's not about us. We're the ones who survived the system and got some kind of job out of it. We're the ones who had the training and the genetics and the support to be able to handle the work. We're the lucky ones.
ReplyDeleteAll we can really do is pass on as much of our incredible luck, and do as much good as we can with the position it gave us. Tell them to stay in class, do the work, and finish their degree. It may not make Pregnant Patty a journalist but it increases her chances of getting some kind of job that pays decently. Poor kid.
If she thinks she has a lot on her mind now, just wait until the baby's born ...
Conversations like this one make me wonder why I bother. The Pregnant Patties outnumber the rest of us. We are all f-ing doomed.
ReplyDelete"Idiocracy" wasn't supposed to be a documentary, but sometimes it makes you wonder...
@Sawyer: What I hate is reading through a student's basket-weaving final exam on the last day and discovering that she has repeatedly and consistently misspelled "basket-weaving."
ReplyDeleteBasket-weaving is my fucking life. And "basket-weaving" is in the course title.
I am tempted to put a note in my syllabus that says, "If you misspell 'basket-weaving' on the final exam, then I will fail your ass."
I wonder if this will be a positive step in this young woman's life. For it appears that she would not complete college, and if she did, not with a college level education. Perhaps she could, but my experience indicates she was at high risk.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, nothing makes you grow up faster than parenthood. I know numerous young single parents whose life was placed on track by parenting. On average, is it better she waste time in college or doing something meaningful, like raise a child?
I've had OK results with some (not all) of the single moms when they return to college in their late 20's/early 30's... they've been through hell and back and tend to be some of my most motivated ones
ReplyDelete@Jaguar: Yes, same with the army vets. Generally.
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ReplyDeleteMan, some of the posts on this site can be appallingly meanspirited, condescending, and classist. This girl has made two very difficult decisions – to keep her baby and to take a break from school – and you choose to frame her as a contemptibly stupid bandwagon-jumper. It's fascinating that you feel a poor pregnant girl's problems are somehow a personal affront to your talents as a pedagogue.
ReplyDeleteI'll sit back and wait for the requisite barrage of insults and excuses why the hassles of academia warrant this sort of nastiness.
@honest prof: that is an optimistic take on it, and I like to think of Patty coming back older, wiser, harder working than she currently is. I have had some of those students myself and they are always a pleasure. I just wish there were more of them.
ReplyDelete@James: I wrote that Patty was none too bright. I knew this about her long before this conversation, and believe me, it is true. She refuses to think, to open her mind. I could give specific examples from class responses (encouraged/forced---she's not one to volunteer) but I don't want to be too specific.
And I only wish she had made a difficult decision. My conversation with her indicated that she had just let this happen, without thinking too much at all. I told her about my own experience caring for newborns, and about other students, very dedicated ones ("like you" I said, even though she has never shown anything like dedication in my class, whatever her protestations to the contrary) who, once they had babies, either dropped out of class or had a very hard time. "It's really stressful," I said. "It's really time consuming." I was trying to convince her to finish out the semester. She was near passing my class. I would work with her, I said, to make sure she did pass, and she would have this class at least behind her. She pshhawwed me. "Most of my friends are mothers already. I know what I am in for. It is not going to be a problem at all." I don't feel mean spirited toward her at all. I just feel depressed, because in spite of everything I do to try to help people raise themselves up, the vast majority of them, Patty being just one example, don't care, and waste their opportunities in so many ways, every day, all the time, all around me.
It's not an affront to me. But it is depressing.
On another note, you seem very angry, James. You maybe should talk with someone about that.
Wow. Bella, that's a weirdly personal comment to make to James. People who disagree with you aren't necessarily angry; they just disagree with you. And I agree with him. The language of your response is particularly classist. You're helping these students "raise themselves up"? From what? To what? Why should we measure "up" and "down" by your yardstick? You say this student refuses to "open her mind." I don't see anything in your original post or in your response to James's legitimate concern that indicates that you yourself have one. We all know that motherhood is a tough row to hoe, and that there are easier and harder ways to do it, but I don't think you have the right to decide which way is right for this young woman. Maybe you've had similar choices in your life and you've chosen something different, but that doesn't give you the right to play Lady Bountiful. I understand that it's a bitch to watch a damaging system perpetuate itself, but you're working in a system that requires a permanent underclass to operate. Why not judge the system?
ReplyDelete"On another note, you seem very angry, James. You maybe should talk with someone about that."
ReplyDeleteThanks for the advice. I hope you'll forgive me if I, like Pregnant Patty, take your condescending psychoanalysis with an enormous grain of salt.
Can you really not see the smirking, judgemental unpleasantness underlying your responses to people? I bet your students can.
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ReplyDeleteI don't know that parenthood necessarily makes people "grow up" as I've seen plenty of immaturity by the childed who think that although parenting made them a better person, they don't really have to change their lifestyles to accommodate the new people they created.
ReplyDeleteWhat I have seen are younger students who drop out because of becoming (usually single) parents and then return several years later because they want to be role models for their kids or because they regret they didn't get educated for a better career. I've also seen some who compete with their kids, i.e., parent and child taking the same classes together to see who can get the better grade or graduate first.
We in CC Universe often joke about our students' being on the "ten-year plan" for an associate's degree because of the number of students who drop out and come back years later. A kid might be the impetus, but it also could be watching someone ten years younger get a promotion because that person had a degree even though the dropout had five more years of experience, going through a divorce and having to support oneself for the first time, being laid off from a really good job and needing new skills, or just being tired of working so hard for so little money.
Since there's no guarantee that an Associate's degree will get you any kind of job, whereas most of the time getting pregnant guarantees you a kid, who can blame someone for choosing the surer thing?
ReplyDeleteThis whole idea that education "raises you up" is obsolete for most institutions and most degrees. It's what's caused people to go into student debt they'll never get out of. It's possible that education raises you up to middle-class aspirations your income will never accommodate, but it is not the source of class mobility it once was.
You did your best, Bella, but it sounds like you and your student come from vastly different worlds. For many people, parenting is the job they'll get with the most autonomy and authority; it's the least alienated labor they'll do. She made a choice, but I don't see it as the lesser one.