Title:
A Class Where Teens Learn Mothering, and Are
Mothered
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
Parents are a child's first teachers. But some
parents never learned from good examples. In New
York City, a nonprofit agency called Covenant House
tries to help homeless young mothers become good
parents. The twelve or so teenagers who live at the
shelter attend parenting classes four days a week.
The class is called Mommy and Me. Teacher Delores
Clemens is a mother of five and a grandmother. She
teaches basic skills, like how to give a baby a bath
and how to dress a baby depending on the season. She
remembers one student who learned from her mother
not to pick up a crying baby. The mother said that
would only make the child needy and overly
demanding. Delores Clemens told the student: "That's
not true. You have to hold your baby. He is crying
for a reason. If you never pick him up, he's going
to keep crying. Pick your baby up. Cuddle your baby.
Hug him!"Delores Clemens says her students also
learn how to be good mothers by letting themselves
be mothered. She said: "I'm doing something for them
that never has been done for them before." Around
three hundred fifty teenage mothers graduate from
Covenant House's Mommy and Me class every year.
Natasha is in class one day with her baby son. She
lived on the streets. She is glad not only for the
warmth and shelter of Covenant House. She is also
glad for the help they offer in seeking a more
secure life. She said: "They help you do your
resume, your cover letter and everything you need
for a job interview, and they help you find a job."
Some teenage mothers wish they could be children
themselves again. Eighteen-year-old Placida knows
that feeling. She says being amother is hard. She
said: "You have to get up every two hours in the
middle of the night, and you can't go out and say 'I
am going to buy this for myself.' No. I have to buy
Pampers, clothes and food." The World Health
Organization says the United States has forty-one
births for every one thousand girls age fifteen to
nineteen per year. That is higher than other
developed countries, as well as some developing
ones. By comparison, Canada has fourteen births for
every one thousand girls age fifteen to nineteen and
Mexico has eighty-two. And that's the VOA Special
English Education Report. You can comment on this
report at voaspecialenglish.com.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
