drop outs are they dead beats?

I had the lovely opportunity to have a nice conversation with a former teacher about a youth facility where a lot of kids that go there are drop outs. I learned that more than half the kids that are confined there are drop outs. A lot of them even could have possibly dropped out long before high school. The only reason they went to this place and had a learning experience was because they got caught breaking the law. She stated “the teachers there just love their job and do their best to help change the kid’s life to get them to change.” The kids are incarcerated there on an average of 6 months and in that amount of time they would have 6 to 8 kids get their G.E.D. I found it very interesting that most of the kids that went there had usually not better then a 3^rd grade level of learning. This would hinder them in the future years of trying to obtain a good paying job in order to survive.

I also had the chance to ask a couple of my close friends about them dropping out. One said that he did it because he got bored with school. His parents didn’t expect him to make anything of himself so he turned to other things mainly drugs and alcohol trying to fill that void in him that came from not having the support of his parents. He has not made much of his life other than drugs. He has never had a steady job. The other friend talked about how she let her boyfriend influence her so much that his grades dropped beyond repair so her boyfriend talked her into dropping out and “start slinging the drugs out on the streets.” There is a plus side to her story though she is now back in school working towards a better life. She took a look at where she was and where she wanted to be, and she didn’t like what she saw. I think in part it’s because she now has a child and wants to provide for him. She is not just thinking of herself anymore.