We developed a new curriculum for early childhood education as well as care for underachieving high-school students. The curriculum includes three major issues: 1) Students are told to imagine that they have become pregnant, and then led to pursue the process of study from pregnancy to childbirth and to childcare. 2) They are taught to consider the problems related to childcare from the viewpoint of economy. 3) They are provided with a variety of worksheets as well as date involving their daily activities. The lessons are evaluated on the basis of questionnaires as well as the worksheets collected from students after each lesson.The results of our initial questionnaires made it clear that the students had realized how much childrearingwas economically burdensome. Through these results we were able to evaluate to what extent the students realized the need to know more about childcare and also the need to seek community as well as family support. It is to be noted that they also understood how troublesome pregnancy might be for teenagers, and how desirable it was for them to stay away from thoughtless sexual intercourse.Many students indicated in their worksheets that they understood the aims and contents of this course of study, that it helped them in considering more seriously about the problems involved with childcare, that they would make use of what they had learned in their lives, and, most of all, that they had to consider the financial consequences of parenthood and childcare.
