In making decisions about how to educate children, how we see young adults and what we think of them has a major influence on the school and educational choices we make for them. . This article builds on previous analysis of how the term "teen mother" is used discursively to mark girls as "other" by examining the effects of discourse on curricular decisions and social policy, namely the separation of pregnant adolescents and mothers in alternative classes and/or complementary programs. The use of separation as a teaching tool is widespread among adolescents who are pregnant or have children (Pillow, 2004). As the private issue of their pregnancy becomes a visible and public issue, schools, policymakers, and educators feel compelled to respond by changing the curriculum or educational option. Very often this response involves removing or separating girls from their home school and providing them with alternative school environments specifically tailored to pregnant and maternal adolescents or support services to support the girl in her student life and parent. By offering separate services or a different curriculum, administrators and policymakers reify the idea that the pregnant or maternal adolescent is now different: the public status of her pregnancy marks her sexuality as different from the norm and requires withdrawal or separation from traditional schools ( Burdell, 1995). Yet, I argue that the usual policy of a separate location and/or program for adolescent girls with children is arbitrary and not fixed in the girl's academic success. Rather, the policy of isolation serves as a physical reminder of how marginalized these young women are... middle of paper ... and educational isolation to generate and reinforce the concept that these girls need to be separated to succeed. By questioning the seemingly natural character of the "teen mother" as a fixed category that requires separate schooling and curricula, I argue that the discourses and policies that support separation are not rooted in the benefit education of the young woman. On the contrary, separating these girls from other students helps to reaffirm dominant norms in opposition to “the other.” By examining the discourses that support and are supported by the educational policy of separating adolescent girls from children, we provide a breaking point from which we can question educational decisions that have been taken for granted in the past and call to rethink our educational and educational policies. curricular actions towards pregnant students and those who have children.