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Real-Life Learning Shows Commonalties among Childless MHC Students and Young Holyoke Moms

Lynn Morgan used to teach her Anthropology of Reproduction seminar by having students read books, discuss ideas, and write papers on issues related to contraception, pregnancy, birth, and abortion. This year she's added a new dimension: students interacted with young women who have already faced those issues and are living with the consequences of their reproductive decisions.

Morgan's students--none of whom have children--still read books such as Kristin Luker's Dubious Conceptions and still discuss ideas and write papers. But some say they've learned the most from interviewing local teenage mothers. Young mothers who use the education and child-care services of The Care Center in Holyoke first came to campus and discussed their lives with Morgan's class. In subsequent weeks, MHC students went to Holyoke and interviewed the moms about their reproductive decisions.

Many of the ideas the students had read about were echoed in the mothers' lives, but there were some surprises, too. Scottie Wait '97 said that although many people assume teen mothers become pregnant by accident, the women she interviewed had planned pregnancies at ages fourteen and fifteen. Several students were amazed that young mothers saw becoming pregnant and raising a child as a mark of responsibility (though many people label it irresponsible behavior). Others were surprised to learn that the teen moms didn't necessarily expect that men would be reliable or available partners. But despite differences in cultural background, education, and family experiences, MHC students found they had more in common with the moms than they expected.

And students learned a lot. "It's much more beneficial to talk to teen mothers about their concerns and the issues affecting them rather than reading statistics or personal excerpts from a book," says Wait. "This experience helped dispel negative assumptions that we tag onto young mothers." She found the women had goals for themselves and were "on the right track" to achieve them. "There's nothing like hearing about a topic from someone who's been through it," agrees Morgan. Students told her that their conversations with the teen mothers "helped them think about their own reproductive decisions and helped them realize that their own decisions not to have children reproduce a particular kind of social stratification."

Morgan says including community-based learning in a course such as this has great value for students. "One of the dangers of being a residential College is that we can be too inward-looking, but we can take educational advantage of the wider community in which we live," she explains. "As anthropologists, we usually focus on other cultures and nations, but many of the same lessons can be learned right here at home."