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An alternative to going to youth detention or to boot-camp, or to jail or an early grave. It is so hard for teachers to teach students these days because, the classrooms are filled with students who do not care about getting an education nor do they care about others getting an education, so they are rude and disruptive in every way possible.
It is hard working at an alternative school. Everyday it is more and more stressful. Students who have been removed from the regular schools in the county, because of behavior, refusal to come to school, or refusal to do school work are given a chance to get on task and turn their life around. It appears that the youth who attend an Alternative School have given up all hope. Most of the time it is because of family problems, such as parents being on drugs, or some other dysfunctional situation going on in their lives.

Sometimes it gets to the point when you just want to turn in your resignation and say forget it. However, your inner spirit reminds you that these are the boys and girls that really need you. They are the ones that the regular teacher cannot not and don't have the time to reach or teach because time or inadequacy will not allow them. Then you start the next day with a prayer in hopes of today being a better day. To no avail it is worst than the day before. Besides from being threatened for no reason and cursed everything but a child of God, no one is doing any work today. This is either because "I ain't doing that s-t (not seat)" or "I don't know what the f-k (not fork) you putting that work on my desk for I am not doing it" or because the student is "high" off either marijuana or some other drug.
The sad thing about the students attending the alternative school is that they are capable of doing work, some of them are very intelligent, but somewhere during earlier years of their lives they became lost. Lost to drugs, alcohol, abuse, sex, neglect, and most of all they are spiritually lost. They have no idea what life has to offer and at this point they do not care.
Some of them come from good families, mothers and fathers have done all they know how to keep their child on the right track. Some mothers in tears and fathers leave their jobs to come out to check on their child. They work hard to buy them the essentials for school, but nothing helps. Many do what they see their friends do and find pleasure in embarrassing, and upsetting their parents.
What will become of these young people? How do we reach them? What can we do to keep them from a jail cell or from early death? More and more jail cells are getting filled with young people who think school is a joke. Alternative school teachers and administrations are getting stressed out to the point they are ready to give up. Regular school can no longer tolerate this negative behavior and it seems like there is no point of giving them an alternative. It is true there are less students in a class at an alternative school, however, you have the behavior of many negative personalities, threatening, cursing, willful disobedient, disruptive students who are too young to dropout and to grown to want to be here. Is there another alternative?
The only other alternative is prayer. Whether it's at home or silently behind a desk, prayer is the only key there is to turn these youth around. I know many people don't want to hear about prayer but when prayer was in the schools this problem was out of the school. There is a lost generation because Prayer and God were removed from schools. Give us back an alternative to worship and praise God in school.

Learn more about this author, Sandra J Willis.
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