What’s the secret to transforming the challenges of teaching teen moms into a rewarding classroom experience?

In What Teaching Teen Moms Taught Me, author Janice Airhart embarks on a transformative journey of discovery at the age of 55 from a career in laboratory science to teaching science to pregnant and parenting teen girls in suburban Oklahoma. Faced with students who are often sick, exhausted, or distracted, she quickly realizes that teaching is more than delivering content as it requires humility, creativity, and responsiveness to unique needs. With limited resources, she integrates science standards with students’ interests and their babies’ needs, finding joy in the challenge. A DNA lab using Everclear highlights her innovative, risky strategies. The book captures the humour, struggles and triumphs of an unconventional classroom.

Ideal for people in the field of education studies, particularly those working with underserved or non-traditional student populations, like special education teacher, school counsellor and professionals interested in alternative teaching methods.

Janice Airhart was a medical technologist, researcher, educator, and writer. She volunteers in child literacy and poverty programs, leading a regional reading initiative for struggling students at an underperforming school.