Your parents always tell you that a good education is the key to a bright future. The promise you made to finish your schooling has been completed. Another few years in some college classroom just doesn’t sound too attractive; so what are your choices? Let’s see, Choice One—You can live with your parents and do nothing. Or Choice Two—You could get yourself a job. Of course, there are other choices, but for this little discussion, we’ll just suppose that they aren’t related (有关的).
OK, so Choice Two is obviously going to be more effective. You will finally enter the real world. Well, hopefully high school helped to give you some kind of an idea of what type of job you would like to enter. If not, then it would be a good idea to speak with an expert working in the field you may be interested in before you jump into a job that you won’t like. Gaining knowledge can be good by helping you find the job that you will enjoy doing. Another reason to get some valued things before working. Internships (见习) or volunteering are usually a good place to start.
If you are ready to begin a job after high school, you will save money from college cost and happily making a living in your chosen jobs. From another point of view, jumping into the workforce (劳动力) is sometimes the only way to see for yourself if you are ready to work a 40-hour week yet. If you decide that full time work is not what you are ready for, then this may advise that you should go back to a university and get a certificate.
Two different

Parents are a child’s first teachers. But some parents never learned from good examples. In New York City, Covenant House tries to help homeless young mothers become good parents.
The twelve or so teenagers who live at the shelter attend parenting classes four days a week. The class is called Mommy and Me.
Teacher Delores Clemens is a mother of five and a grandmother. She teaches basic skills, like how to give a baby a bath and how to dress a baby in different seasons.
She remembers one student who learned from her mother not to pick up a crying baby. The mother said that would only make the child needy.
“I said ‘That’s not true. You have to hold your baby! He is crying for a reason. If you never pick him up, he’s going to keep crying. Pick your baby up. Hug(拥抱)him! And she started to do that. They just want a little hugging and a little love. And it works!” Delores Clemens said.
Delores Clemens says her students also learn how to be good mothers by letting themselves be mothered. “I’m doing something for them that never has been done for them before.”
In class, with her baby son, is Natasha. She lived on the streets. She is glad not only for the warmth and shelter of Covenant House. As she told reporter Adam Phillips, she is also glad for the help they offer in looking for a safer life.
“Did you go to high school?”
“Yes.”
“Did you graduate?”
“No, I didn’t. I was in my last year and then, I got pregnant(怀孕)and I got lazy.”
“You look like you are willing to accept responsibility(责任)for that.”
“Yes, I am, and I would like to finish.”
Some teenage mothers wish they themselves could be children again. 18-year-old Placida knows that feeling. “Because you have to get up every two hours in the middle of the night, and you can’t go out and say ‘I am going to buy this for myself.’ No. I have to buy pampers, clothes and food. So now it’s two. So it’s very hard.” Placida said.
【小题1】What did Natasha want to finish high school for?