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Who did you say was pregnant?

© Mary Pantazis

My second year as a teacher was particularly tough for me. I was teaching an English class filled with girls. They were all special needs girls from the same kinds of backgrounds. Broken homes and broken lives. Some already had police records and some were just plain sad lonely and abused.

I remember 4 of them clearly, Katie was a large girl. She had greasy hair and filthy clothing. Many of the students made fun of her for her dirty appearance. She was loud and boisterous. She spent most of her afternoons in detention. Katie could not read and refused to try.

Then there was Linda. She was pretty and smelled like lilacs. She had long blonde hair and always had a boy friend at least 3 years older than she. Her parents were divorced and Linda rarely went home. She spent most of her time in the homes of her boyfriends. Linda could not read a word.

Sally was a small girl, long hair and well groomed. She was Linda's first cousin and the two girls were always at each other's throats. Sally cried a lot and Linda could easily put her to tears.

Then there was Cassie. Cassie is the most memorable of the group. She was a girl with severe emotional handicaps and she also had a High IQ which she refused to put to work. Cassie could read at a college level if she chose, but she didn't choose. Instead, Cassie was looking for boys, trying to break up other relationships, and spending her time writing out a prostitution price list in the lunch room. I was the teacher who confiscated the price list. ( I won't tell you that there were items on there that I didn't know people did!) One full night with Cassie cost a mere 50.00. I do not know the price of prostitution but it seemed to me she was selling herself pretty cheap!

But Cassie, with all of her crazy problems, was the most memorable student I have ever come in contact with. Cassie came from a home where all of her brothers and sister had different fathers. Cassie was the youngest child. She was 14 when I first had her in class and her mother was around 40 but looked about 65.

Each of the various step father's that Cassie had had victimized Cassie in different ways. The final step father was in jail at the time I knew her for using Cassie in a child pornography video series in the family's living room.