This article was originally published in The Texas Tribune.
FORT WORTH — Tiphainne Wright tapped her foot as she flipped through her copy of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the dystopian novel. To be dismissed from class that November day, Wright and her fellow students had to identify a metaphor or motif in that week’s reading.
“I’m never getting out of here,” Wright said, filling in the silence in the room, a nervous smile played on her lips.
Eventually, she thought of an example and jotted it down. She turned it in to her teacher, Mrs. Dory, and received a fist bump.
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The 22-year-old dropped out of high school her junior year after having a baby. She never liked school anyhow. The hectic environment was not conducive to her learning, she said.
She’s trying again, four years later, so she can get a job that will support her and her son.
The flexibility of afternoon and evening classes at her adult high school “gives me extra time to spend with him and encourage him to finish school and push him to be somebody better than I was,” she said.