Why Do I love Writing?

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  Growing up in the dusty and busy streets of Accra was a normal upbringing for my parents. I’m from Ghana, a country located in the Western part of Africa.Abdul Mujeeb is a name given to me after birth meaning “The servant of The Responder”. I serve God who responds and listen to all of our prayers. I was born Jan,27 2001 on a Saturday at 11:32pm. I’m the first child to my parents. They taught me how to speak my  first language (Twi).They provided for my needs and put me in school when I was 4 to learn Mathematics and English language.

   My mum has a highschool level of education so she helped me with my homework assignments when I was a kid. Unfortunately, not every child in my neighborhood started school at that early age. They spent their time playing with car tires and empty tin cans throughout the day. They watched me go to school in a black and white uniform. I walked  half a mile from home to the bus stop in my well-polished black shoes with my mum holding my hands.My friends always yelled out my name and told me to join them play when I got back from school.

  After school was over, I will go home to complete all given assignments before I go out to play. I will return home exhausted, take a shower and prepare for school the next day. I was attending a private school named De Youngsters International.My parents sacrificed everything to give me a quality education and also let me have a good learning facility with available resources.There were a lot of foreign kids who lived on campus and were from rich families.A lot of them were Nigerians or British.Im from a middle class family with two brothers and two sisters.

  In kindergarten, I was taught to spell my name and how to read . I was slow at first, it took me sometime with consistent practice each day. Before I got to middle school I was one of the best students in class. I had the clarity in speaking and knowing how to pronounce words clearly.I expressed my thoughts and shared my ideas confidently. I participated in seminars by always understanding the topic and shared my perspective on the discussions made.

  However, I was a good student in class just to get promoted to the next grade. I did my assignments because they were mandatory. I spent my time at home doing homework because my mom will always ask me to do so. I did my readings because I was examined on it at the end of every month. I did  good work in school because I was monitored. It was not because I loved it or had passion for it. Fortunately, I made it to middle school with very good grades. I was acknowledged by my teachers for the good work I did. My parents were ecstatic for my good work and decided to bring me abroad.

  In September 2013, I found myself in New York City.I wondered to the beauty of the city as I strolled on a tour bus with my parents in Manhattan. Everything was perfect to me. The cluster of tall buildings were glamorous and luxurious. I was startled at the population of people who walked hurriedly on the sidewalk. I enjoyed my first week , I went shopping, went out to dinners and tours. luckily , I started middle school at PS 28. I was troubled at the beginning because I barely understood what people said to me. They talked really fast and had a different way of pronunciation. They had a certain type of melody in their speech which sounded beautiful. It was common . I was frustrated because I didn’t understand nothing. I started watching tv shows and animes with subtitles which I imitated the way the characters spoke. I started reading and writing a lot to cope with my environment.

   After a while , writing became a habit . I loved to write because I wanted enhance my handwriting skills. I was taught how to write autobiographies and reflections in school. I enjoyed my reading and writing class. I had a great teacher. I saw progress because I wrote everyday. I had new vocabulary words which made it easier to express myself in my writings. I won student of the month so many times. I loved it. My achievements made me write more and work harder. I graduated from middle school and became a freshman at Dewitt Clinton Highschool. I had a lot of experiences in highschool.

  Sophomore year, My principal got fired for stealing grades to help students graduate. Teachers were also fired. We barely studied in class. There were fights in the hallways and outside of school on Jerome Avenue most of the time. There was no discipline instilled in the school. Students did not pay attention in class, mocked the teachers and distracted other students who tried to learn. It was difficult to study. We barely covered all the topics in class required for the semester. It was traumatic.

  Junior year, we had a new principal, new teachers, the school was renovated and cleaned up to make it a better place for learning. They taught well and assigned reading and writing assignments each day. We spent time in the library writing essays and doing research. We were taking outside to the soccer pitch to refresh our minds and have new thoughts on what to write about. I enjoyed the new protocol. I went to school happy each day knowing I had completed all given assignments and ready to learn something new. I spent my leisure time writing poetry/spoken words and metaphors. I wrote about my experiences in life and shared my ideas on a piece of paper.which has a positive impact on my life today. I completed 49 credits at the end of my junior year and did not have to do much in Senior year.

  In Conclusion, I love to write because it helps me get familiar with words, it helps me express my thoughts and feelings in a unique way and manner.I’m able to write about my life experiences when I write. It builds me to be a learned person and it reduces my grammatical errors.Writing is something I started doing gradually since I was four years old. I get expose to new ideas, new writing techniques and format as I increase my level of education.

Why is Teenage Pregnancy prevented in New York City?

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There are many experiences we encounter growing up from childhood to puberty or adolescence. Lack of guidance and protection from an adult,guardian or parent may lead young teens to the wrong path and bad habits. Most of the time, young teens are influenced by peer pressure and environment in which they live in.New York City has been contemplated as the heart of the United State of America.  It’s a tourist attraction and also a very diverse city containing residents of different ethnicity, nationality, race and background. According to research,, teenage pregnancy is controlled in New York City because teen parents end up to be unemployed, live in poverty which leads to homelessness.

In Time Magazine, the article “Preventing teen pregnancy can help prevent poverty” written by Janine M.Zweig, Elsa Falken burger states that US department of Health and Human Services announced it will cut short funding for 81 programs focused on identifying effective ways to prevent teen pregnancy, including teaching about sexually transmitted diseases, contraceptives, and abstinence. Teen pregnancy is common among girls of color and has significant poverty implications. Many teen parents face major obstacles including poverty. Only 38 percent of girls who have a child before age 18 get their high school diplomas by age 22. Again, two-thirds of teen mothers who move out of their family home live in poverty, and a similar share receive public benefits in the first year of their child’s life.

Furthermore, Seventy-eight percent of children born to teenage mothers who never married and who did not graduate from high school live below federal poverty level.The Department of Health and Human Services has worked since 2010 to build evidence about the effectiveness of programs focused on community-wide initiatives to address teen pregnancy and birth among those highest rates, particularly African American and Hispanic youth. The Urban Institute has joined by developing a community based program known as Promoting Adolescence Sexual Safety (PASS) program. The program covers many topics , including anatomy , sexual victimization, sexual orientation and contraception.

In New York Times, the article “Success in preventing teenage pregnancy” by Nadine Brozan claims more than 3,000 teen-age girls become pregnant everyday and 1,300 are born to adolescents. The National Center for Health Statistics seem bleak and represent a decline in the rates of both pregnancy and childbirth among women under 20. According to the center, the number of infants -479,000- born to teenagers in 1984 dipped below half a million for the first time since 1960.Marian Wright Elderman, founder and president of the children at defense fund said Adolescent pregnancy is decreasing. She also said it’s decreasing because of activism by all kinds of organizations and in part because of increased awareness among public officials of the magnitude of the problem and its effects.

Marian W. Elderman also added “AIDS may do for us what one million teenage pregnancies couldn’t do: get us talking about sex,” she continued. “It’s forcing parents to talk to children. People who were tongue-tied realize that they must address something that is lethal.” Basically, Marian W Elderman was saying aids has become a terror which has led parents to sex educate their children and people who cared less turned out to advice the young ones which reduced the rates of teen pregnancy and epidemic.

In Daily News, the article “Tackling teen pregnancy in New York “ by Katie Charles states that Adolescents are the age group with the least access to health care.

They are less likely to be seen by a doctor and more likely to be uninsured.Unplanned pregnancy is a major health concern for adolescents.One third of American women become pregnant before age 20 and eighty Percent of this pregnancies are unintended. Teens from socially disadvantage groups are likely  to be 

uninsured, and they often donor have access to services where they can get contraceptives and guidance for preventing pregnancy.

Based on the article ”Tackling teen pregnancy in New York” by Katie Charles from Daily News states ways to prevent teen pregnancy which.is talking to a doctor or counselor. with teens who are sexually active, doctors make sure they have complete information about contraceptives and STDs. They educate teens to use condoms to reduce higher rates of STD infection. Better option is provided by using a longer-acting device like an IUD, an injection every three months to prevent pregnancy. For teens who are pregnant, the first step is figuring out how far into the pregnancy they are.The next issue is what kind of support they have in their lives, and who they are going to share this information with. 

 An article from a scholary source in the CCNY database titled “The Impact of state abortion policies on teen pregnancy rates” by marshall Medoff states that infants born to teens are more likely to be of low birth weight, preterm,at greater risk of serious and long-term illness,developmentally slow, maltreated, abused and living in poverty.Teen mothers are less likely to complete their education,to be employed, to have high occupation attainment , to earn high wages and they are more likely to be in poverty and receive welfare assistance. Teens who are not academically motivated and do poorly in school are more likely to be pregnant than are their high-achieving peers.Teen pregnancy is also linked to problematic adolescent behaviors such  as alcohol and drug use.Teens who are raised in poverty by a single parent and by parents with low educational attainment are more prone to be pregnant.

Teens who have high family income and attend church frequently have lower rates of teenage pregnancies.Life experiences associated with poverty,such as alienation at school and prevalent models of unmarried parenthood and unemployment are factors related to teen pregnancy.Teens who have parents who do not stress responsibility and self-discipline are more likely to have a nonmarital pregnancy.Economic models of teen sexual activity are based on rational choice theory. Models of teen social behavior which emerge from this approach are predicated in the assumption that teens make rational decisions about sexual activity, contraceptives usage and pregnancy resolution based on a comparison of 

the respective costs and benefits of each alternative. The economic costs typically involve opportunities a teen gives up by becoming pregnant. 

Teens choose the optimal alternative depending on their values and the information they have available to them.The underlying premise of rational choice theory is that teens make choices that are rewarding to them and avoid those that are not. In other words, rational choice theory expects teens to respond incentives.This framework has been applied to the risky sexual activity of teens and the empirical results are generally supportive of the rational choice theoretical approach.Criticism of economic rational choice models are attributable to a fundamental misunderstanding of the reasons for a rational choice theoretical approach. Proponents of rational choice theory do not contend that it is a complete descriptor reality. 

Nevertheless, by assuming teens make decisions in a rational manner implies that their behavior can be modeled and empirically certifiable hypotheses can be formulated even if this may not be the exact manner in which decisions are made. A focus on economic oats does no imply that social, cultural, attitudinal, family or community factors do not influence a teen’s risky sexual behavior, rather, this approach suggests that economic costs may have an independent effect on teens’ risky sexual activity. In particular, an economic rational choice model of teen risky sexual activity suggests that economic costs will affect the decisions individual teens make regarding fertility and contraception in a predictable manner and the aggregated effects of these decisions will be evident in teen pregnancy rates at state level In 1992, the US Supreme Court in Planned parenthood of southeastern Pennsylvania reaffirmed the constitutionality of abortion, but gave states considerable latitude to pass laws restricting women’s abortion access, as long as the restrictions do not constitute an “undue burden” on women seeking an abortion. This decision is Controversial because the Court did not explicitly define the ambiguous phrase “undue burden.” A restrictive abortion law may not appear to be a prima facie “ undue burden”, but in point of fact may impede a woman’s access to an abortion.

This article, using the tool of economic analysis, empirically examines how teens respond to restrictive abortion laws that alter their costs of engaging in risky sexual activity. Access to an abortion provides insurance against unwanted pregnancies since abortion is the only birth control method which allows women to avoid a birth once pregnant,Their theoretical model implies restrictive state abortion laws, by increasing the costs incurred by women in terminating an unwanted pregnancy, may increase the incentive of women in avoid becoming pregnant.

 In the article,  “Prevention of STI and teenage pregnancies through sex education”by Małgorzata Drwal,Katarzyna Głaszcz, Anna Taracha,Adrianna Krupa,Olga Padała and Ryszard Maciejewski claim that the Ministry of Education is responsible for

shaping sex education policies and the curriculum mostly focuses on STI-related diseases (including HIV/AIDS), contraceptive methods and teen pregnancy issues. Unfortunately, psychological aspects of sex or sexual assault subjects are rarely discussed upon.

As a result, sexual initiation often results in unwanted pregnancies or infections. The audience is everyone and the rhetorical situation is Lack of proper sex education programs

can result in increased rates of teen pregnancies and spread of STIs.Some of them are curable and some only treatable. There are many differences between symptoms,treatment and risk of infection, A well-prepared teacher should become the ultimate source of information on sex for teens, rather than the Internet or their peers.Teen pregnancy and STIs can burden people for the rest of their lives.. Young people look for knowledge in many sources.

The authors perpectives or point of view is that efficient sex education classes increase young people’s awareness of STI, so it is considered as one of the numerous prophylactic methods,Honest classes based on up-to-date medical knowledge contribute to decreased amount of STI and those who might get sick will look for medical advices earlier.Knowledge about natural and artificial methods of contraception decrease the risk of teenage pregnancies.Reliable sex education will help young people to go through that hard teenage time. The purpose of this article is based on the methods and ways to prevent Sexually transmitted diseases. The authors of this article are trying to evoke relief amongst its audience by demonstrating ways that could prevent or cure STIs. The information and collection of data provided affects the audience positively by educating them on how to  prevent STIs and raising an awareness aiding them know when they are facing its symptoms.

In the article,”Long term outcomes of an Abstinence-Based,small-group pregnancy prevention program in New York City schools.” by lisa D.lieberman,heather gray, Megan Wier,Renee Florentino and Patricia Maloney claims that Adolescent continue initiate intercourse at an early age,many long before they are emotionally and psychologically prepared to deal with its consequences.In addition,a significant proportion of preadolescents and early adolescents, particularly those residing in inner cities, engage in sexual behaviors that place them at high risk for HIV or sexually transmitted disease (STD) transmission.small group approach to preventing pregnancy and STDs that took place in three New York City middle schools.School have been the primary site of formal sexuality education programs over the past several decades. However, while some curricula have demonstrated promising results, no single school-based approach has been shown to markedly reduce adolescent sexual activity, risk-taking or pregnancy. 

According to the article, during early adolescence, uncertainty about oneself, puberty, heightened interpersonal sensitivity and awareness of changing physical appearance often result in self-criticism, fear of displeasing others and other forms of psychological distress. Inwood House is a multiservice agency providing residential and offsite care and services for pregnant and parenting teenagers in New York City. Inwood House also delivers targeted pregnancy prevention programs to New York City’s youth for the past 21years. It has conducted a pregnancy and disease prevention program called Teen Choice among students in New York City high schools and middle schools.Based on my understanding,The challenge for adolescent pregnancy and disease prevention programs is to develop interventions that encourage students to delay the onset of sexual activity, address the needs of young people who are sexually active to reduce their risk,instill knowledgeable, responsible and healthy attitudes towards sex and support positive parent-child communication.

In the article “long term outcomes of an abstinence-based small-group pregnancy prevention program in New York City schools” says their findings suggest the need for in depth study, over a longer term, that addresses the needs of young people at the highest risk of teenage pregnancy. They are currently engaged in an evaluation that follows a large group of eighth graders who participated in one of three variations of the small-group program and a comparison group through 11grade.Its encouraging that one year after participating in the program , the young women in the intervention group were no more likely than those in the comparison group to be sexually active or to have become pregnant. It’s also heartening to find that a small-group mental health program,based in schools, can affect adolescents’ self reported communication and relationship with their parents.Even when young people are hesitant or unable to approach their parents about sex , they can benefit from the mentoring and support of a trained and experienced adult. Furthermore, the small groups provides young people with the opportunity to explore a variety of issues face as teenagers, and to engage in mutual problem-solving with their peers.

In the article, “ Doing “it” differently:relinquishing the disease and pregnancy prevention focus in sexuality education” by Louisa  Allen states that the inception of the health and physical education curriculum in 1999 enabled sexuality education to recognise student sexual well-being as more than the absence of disease.Provision for such education is contained in explicit statements about this being a lifelong process that provides students with the knowledge, understanding, and skills to develop positive attitudes towards sexuality, to take care of their sexual health, and to enhance their interpersonal relationships, now and in the future.. Despite this policy level change, much school-based sexuality education  clings to a disease and pregnancy prevention focus. A recent national evaluation of programmes involving 1180 students in 15 schools indicated students were critical of the way potential dangers of sexual activity dominated programme content and approaches . Evidence of this persistent concentration on the negative outcomes of sexual activity is also apparent in international sexuality programmes with participants in Australan and British research making similar observation. 

Discourses offer ways of understanding the world and are a product of discursive fields such as medicine, law, education and religion. Sexuality is not possessed by the individual or seen to represent an instinctual or biological given that socialisation develops. Instead, sexuality is constructed through a range of discursive practices or,a whole assemblage of heterogeneous practices, techniques, habits and dispositions, forms of training and so on that govern things like dating and codes of dress in particular situations’. How sexuality is understood is influenced by discourses that circulate in any historical moment and their association with power. As social institutions, schools are spaces in which numerous competing and contradictory discourses of sexuality are played out.  Schools’ deployment of these discourses offer students ways of constructing sexual identities that may be adopted, resisted or reworked. 

In addition,through such discursive practices, ‘student sexuality’ is brought into being. Discourses of sexuality are inextricably tied to relations of power, rendering some more persuasive or seemingly more ‘truthful’ than others. This is partly a historical phenomenon whereby particular discourses acquire dominance in any given moment. Dominant discourses have firm institutional locations and are ubiquitous, making them appear natural, universal, inevitable and commonsense. A current dominant discourse about young people is that their sexuality is something dangerous and that they need protection from. This meaning is produced in discursive fields like psychology where adolescence is constituted as a period of raging hormones and  uncontrollable desires that propel young people into ‘dangerous’ situations. As discourses are multiple and competing, there is no one dominant discourse about young people’s sex.

The purpose of this article has been to problematise the disease and pregnancy prevention focus that pervades many sexuality education programmes and to consider why it continues to be prioritised. This discussion does not assume that information which alerts young people to the potential dangers of sexual activity is invalid or should be disregarded. Why this focus permeates sexuality education, its implications for young people’s sexual identities and conceptualisations of programme effectiveness are instead questioned. Several possible problems with the disease and pregnancy prevention focus of sexu- ality education have been identified. Such education disallows/makes unintelligible the subject who wants sexual danger, subsequently failing to offer them positive messages about their sexual self. By confining its directives to ‘don’t do it’ or if you must ‘do it safely’, danger prevention programmes may alienate the sorts of students they are hoping to address.

 Concentrating on preventing pregnancy also means that students may not receive ‘the full story’ about teenage parenthood and its potential pleasures and benefits. This focus may also mean young people do not receive infor- mation to support their decision-making or life should they become a teenage parent. Prioritising the prevention of teenage pregnancy is another example of privileging heterosexuality that contributes to schools being heteronormative spaces. A danger prevention emphasis also means it is unlikely programmes are configured in ways that empower young people as active agents who can successfully negotiate sexual encounters. To suggest that sexuality education might be conceptualised without this danger prevention emphasis necessitates an exploration of what might replace it. Applying a Foucauldian ethics of pleasure to sexuality education was one way of exploring the possibilities of reconfiguring these programmes. 

There are of course many others, as how sexuality education might be reconceptualised for positive effect would need to be contingent on contextual features such as student composition, the teacher delivering the programme and school culture. What it is hoped this discussion has highlighted is a recognition of the taken-for-granted nature of the prevention focus in sexuality education as appropriate, important and beneficial. How schools might be encouraged to relinquish the disease and pregnancy preven- tion focus has not been addressed. While there may be no inherent reason why programmes should have this focus, the mechanisms that hold schools’ investment in this approach are not removed by simply acknowledging them. Complex power relations operate to entrench these practices at discursive and material levels, despite policy level opportunities to change them. Negotiating these barriers in order to implement change remains a constant challenge for all those interested in the design and delivery of sexuality education.

In Conclusion, I spoke to Michelle a customer service representative in the Bronx from planned parenthood, a non profit organization.We discussed about how teens end up being pregnant before age 20. She gave examples like peer pressure, poverty and lack of communication about sexual related activities  with parents.We also talked about measures or ways to prevent teenage pregnancy. I gave examples such as using condoms during sex, birth controls, abstinenece, sex educations, programs about sexual and physical health in the community.We covered the rates of teenage pregnancy in New york from 1960 to 2017.

The rate has decreased a lot in numbers and percentages.she answered my research question by saying teenage pregnancy should be prevented in New York because it’s a conceptualized as a social and economic problem.Teenage parents end living in poverty and sometimes get driven out of their homes making them homeless,Most of them live in the streets with no jobs and even less graduate high school. This is a social problem but somewhat connects to the economy. Money is spent on programs and institution to help this poor teens with food, needs and sex education. Being unemployed and homeless affects the economy because  the population of the working class reduces making the government spend money to cater for them instead of making investments.

                                                                Works cited

Allen,Louisa “Doing ‘It’ Differently: Relinquishing the Disease and Pregnancy Prevention Focus in Sexuality Education” : Source: British Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol. 28, No. 5 (Sep., 2007), pp. 575-588 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30036236  Accessed: 12-11-2019 05:56 UTC

Stable,Springer “The Impact of State Abortion Policies on Teen Pregnancy Rates”: Marshall Medoff Source: Social Indicators Research, Vol. 97, No. 2 (June 2010), pp. 177-189 

URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40649363 Accessed: 11-11-2019 22:32 UTC

Florentino,Renee, Gray,Heather, lieberman Lisa D,  Maloney, Patricia, and Wier Megan, “Long-Term Outcomes of an Abstinence-Based, Small-Group Pregnancy Prevention Program in New York City Schools”  Source: Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 32, No. 5 (Sep. – Oct., 2000), pp. 237-245 Published by: Guttmacher Institute Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2648177 Accessed: 12-11-2019 00:45

 Drwl,,Malgorzata,  Glaszcz,Katarzyna ,1 Krupa, Adriannna,  ,Maciejewski,Ryszard, and  Tarach,Anna, and Olga, Padala “Prevention of STI and teenage pregnancies through sex education’  Source: Pol J Public Health 2016;126(1): 46-49 Pu