Eastview School for Pregnant and Parenting Teens

I found the article “’Dear Tupac, you speak to me’: Recruiting Hip Hop as Curriculum at a School for Pregnant and Parenting Teens”, not only interesting because of its ideas for an English class curriculum, but also because of the school itself. I agree that using hip hop can be a great tool for students to identify with themselves, culture, and society in a way that is very meaningful. I have read about other teachers who try to incorporate hip hop into reading and writing and for the most part, it seems to be a successful tactic. However, I have never before heard of a school that is only for pregnant and parenting teens. I think the concept of this school is a great idea. It creates a safe space for these girls who have all gone through similar experiences and are motivated enough to further their education. Many girls drop out of school when they are pregnant or after giving birth due to struggles with finding daycare, getting harassed by peers, and having nobody with shared experiences to relate to. All these girls have the ability to achieve academic success, but there are so many barriers standing in their way that they lose all hope. This school solves all those problems. Using hip hop as a source of getting in touch with the students’ “authentic voice” and bridging out-of-school and in-school learning was definitely beneficial to these girls, but I think the atmosphere of the school itself is also a huge factor in their academic achievement. Without this safe space, the girls may not have been comfortable sharing their personal stories in their raps, poems, and songs.

1 thought on “Eastview School for Pregnant and Parenting Teens

  1. I agree that this unique school environment helped give the students confidence to explore their identities through hip hop. Most importantly, the school encouraged them to develop positive views of themselves. I really liked how, in the raps they wrote, the girls contrasted society’s stereotypes of pregnant teenagers with the way they see themselves. Society says that pregnant teenage girls are not scholars- they are deemed failures and pushed out of educational settings. This completely denies the real-life experiences of the girls. The teen moms featured in the article saw their pregnancies as a very positive experience because it pushed them to take responsibility and allowed them to find meaning in their lives. Pregnancy actually inspired these girls to work hard in school to get a better life for themselves and their babies. Average public schools do not value the out-of-school experiences of pregnant teens because it is not a traditional approach to an education, but in some cases it might be more helpful to the girls to value their life as mothers as an important part of their identity and as a positive learning experience.

    -Rachel

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