RationalSnowflake

Content warning: the following post contains details of sexual assault, and can be upsetting. If you feel like it will upset you, please don't feel compelled to read it. These stories happened to me, but they aren't my stories. They belong to all of us. When I was 12 I decided I no longer wanted to be religious. It became increasingly clear to me that religion was just something people made up, and I had stopped playing with imaginary friends when I was eight or nine. It also seemed, at the time, as though non-religious people had more fun in life. They got to eat what they wanted, when they wanted, without having to worry about whether god would approve. They got to go places on the weekend. They got to wear whatever they wanted. It seemed like the secular life was free from a lot of the anxiety that accompanied religion. (I was wrong about a lot of that, and it now seems like people of faith have it a bit easier in life, but that's not really what this blog post is ab...

( The opinions expressed are not representative of City Year or AmeriCorps as organizations) According to City Year's website, and what we have been told (repeatedly) in training, we serve students who are most likely to drop out, using an approach based on research from Johns Hopkins University: (image source:  https://blog.five-startech.com/abcs-dropout-prevention-early-warning-attendance-behavior-course-grades ) Students who have one or more of these "ABCs" are much less likely to graduate compared to their peers. The good news is that students who manage to reach the 10th grade on track are most likely going to graduate. The crucial years, identified by Johns Hopkins and City Year, are grades 3 through 9.  I'm working in a high school, but supposed to be focusing on the 9th grade, for the reason mentioned above. Each of my teammates is assigned to a 9th grade classroom, and we go to lunch with the 9th graders. Our rooms are on the same floor as most of ...