I worried about those students because they were unaware of the ambivalence with which they quietly bought the bill of goods society sold them.

The last group of students I taught were very different from those early students. Bright, attractive, self-assured they were quite prepared to challenge the boss who pinched their bottom or the teacher who preferred big boobs to brains. They were the first group that had what I call a sense of entitlement. Like young men, they assumed they were entitled to have both love and marriage and a career.

I worried about those students also. They were unaware that the young men they would love, live with, and maybe one day marry, had changed but little, if at all, that the world wasn't ready for them.

I still worry about them. Not that I would teach them differently, but that I wish that I and all the others like me had been more successful in changing the world for them. Not that we've quit trying to change the world. Of course not, but that the weight of the 80's is heavy.

Women' s Education Des Femmes would like to know what's happening in the schools, K-12, in the area of women's studies. Please let us know about projects, activities, courses or units of courses that are being taught in your school. Write to: CCLOW, 692 Coxwell Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M4C 3B6.

JESSIE'S CENTRE FOR TEENAGERS:
AN INNOVATIVE SERVICE FOR YOUNG MOTHERS

by Elizabeth Wood

The two story storefront on lower Bathurst Street in Toronto is unassuming. But once inside the door of Jessie's Centre for Teenagers, impressions quickly change. Attractive furniture provides two areas in the large front room for those who visit and work there. A large bulletin board outlines the weekly activities. A tape from the Centre's collection plays on the stereo. Down the hall at the back past the small office, one enters a very large well equipped nursery, an open plan area, where once again adult meeting space is provided within the setting. Photos of mothers with their children from a recent Christmas party adorn the walls, and the aroma of coffee wafts through the room from the large open kitchen in the corner.

Upstairs there is a large meeting area backed by an open kitchen where fresh soup, muffins and other edibles are available for all. The nurse's, teacher's and counseling areas are around the corner.

Full-time staff is comprised of a nurse, teacher, two nursery staff, and coordinators for housing, volunteers, and the office. Approximately 30 volunteers take regular weekly four hour shifts.

Jessie's is a community resource centre designed to meet the needs of teenaged mothers and teenagers who become pregnant. It is the first wholistic approach service for teenagers in the country. Now in its third year of operation, Jessie's offers a very comprehensive set of services in order to meet the major problem facing these adolescents and their babies: mothers must deal with isolation, interruption of education, low income, scarcity of affordable housing, lack of childcare services and a feeling that they have no choices, no way of changing their lives.