Rob:  Well our teachers aren’t the only ones trying to curb teen pregnancies.  Students are also using peer support in a program called positive ways.  As Jessica Betts reports, teaching abstinence is part of a new initiative to help young people facing tough choices.
Jessica:  From something as simple as looking at magazine ads, these young students are seeing how sex sells.
Female Student:  What’s wrong with her?  She doesn’t have on a shirt.
Male Student:  I don’t even know how they take a picture like that.
Female Student:  It should say; Warning, if you’re going to wear these shoes, wear clothing.  (Students laugh).
Jessica:  That’s why Positive Ways educators are spending a day at Jackson Middle School in Oklahoma City.  They’re presenting a lesson that they hope will encourage these 8th graders to say just say no, to sex.
Student Educator:  There are so many things that can happen from just this advertisement.  There are so many consequences to having sex, STD’s and pregnancies, there are more than just two, viruses.
Student Educator:  Well, since Oklahoma is ranked eighth in the nation of the highest teen pregnancies, I think it’ll make a big change starting from our middle schools.
Jessica:  Shante Fenner is the Positive Ways director, and was once a Positive Ways student educator when she was in high school.  And she says that this program is addressing the issues of sex, straight on.
Shante Fenner:  We’re dealing with zip code areas that have the highest teen pregnancy rate within Oklahoma City, and our positive ways program members are going in as positive role models for middle school teens.  Some of them are living in poverty stricken areas; they’re dealing with maybe coming to school with not having enough food to eat, maybe dealing with bullies, drugs, on top of peer pressure and pressures to fit in.
Jessica:  And so they take a look at sexual influences from media.  And come up with ways to make better decisions about how to handle this type of pressure.
Female Student:  Use protection unless you want a child, or, wait until you get married.
Vantasia Mathis:  It helps me, like, think about the decisions I’m going to make.  Like if I’m going out with a boy; and he’s like, I love you; and he wants to have sexual intercourse; I could say, No.  It helps me keep from getting a disease, or ending up pregnant, and ruining my future.
Juan Moncada:  I can prevent, in my future, from dying or having an STD.  I feel that in the future, I, Juan Moncada, will make better decisions in my life.
Jessica:  And while these educators are still in high school themselves, they are even surprised at how prevalent sex can be for children not yet in their teens.
Jennifer:  She was on the fast track of already knowing what to do with a boy.  And he was like, how old are you?  And she was like, I’m only in the 7th grade.  He didn’t know.
Jessica:  And Jennifer realizes that this organization not only touches the lives of the students she teaches, but also touches the lives of her peers.
Jennifer Greer:  As far as me teaching the middle school kids, I can also teach students that I attend school with; they kind of look up to me as a mentor also, because some of the kids that I attend school with wish that they had someone to talk to them about abstinence. 
Jessica:  Making the Positive Ways program a program that’s taking these students right into their communities with something more powerful than a lecture.  They’re setting an example that 8th graders at Jackson can look up to. 
Rob:  Well the Positive Ways Program is created through the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy, which specializes in letting young people help each other.