How often is it that students think about the struggles that ensue when caring for a baby?

Ventura High School has a course students can take called Marriage and Family/Child Development taught by teacher Julia Scoggin, who has taught the class for over 13 years.

Marriage and Family/Child Development is a one year course broken down into two different semesters. During first semester, students focus primarily on marriage and primarily on family/child development second semester.

Throughout the class, students learn about sexual education and parenting. One specific element this class teaches students is how to care for a child, which is a skill that could be useful for students later on in life. For example, students learn that they will need to change their babies’ diaper, feed it with a bottle and burp it.

To learn about child development, students have the option to take care of an imitation baby by themself or with a partner.  Scoggin said the students take care of the babies for one week.

According to Scoggin, “The program has been around for 20 years.” In addition to this, Scoggin said, “I think most students here at VHS will someday become parents. None of us are born into this world with an instruction manual [and] being a parent without skills is pretty scary. Having skills is going to help the child grow to be the best that they can be, so I feel it is very very important [for students to take this class.]”