As I mentioned in the last post, I’m now teaching GED and Adult Basic Education courses at a nonprofit “education and technology center.” The students range in age from their early twenties to their late sixties and come to our center with a variety of academic and work experiences. Some never attended high school or completed a few years, but fell short of earning their diplomas.
Some students are referred through the Move Up program, funded by the Pennsylvania departments of Education and Welfare. Others walk in off the street hoping to improve their reading, writing and math skills or to attain their GED. We teach immigrants who have transitioned out of our center’s English as a Second Language program and a few learners who have been homeless and are currently living in shelters.
Initially, I was surprised by how respectful and engaged the students were in my classes and in the others that I observed. I’ve realized that this is a reflection of the safe and supportive environment that the program directors and other teachers have created. Attendance is pretty inconsistent, but the learners feel comfortable enough to assume their roles as students, despite the obstacles and failures they’ve experienced in the past, and the majority of them are committed to the process.
Before I interviewed for the job in May, my soon-to-be director asked me if I would mind being interviewed by some of the students. He said that one of the teachers wanted to create a lesson around job applications and interview skills, so I agreed to it. He also asked if the teacher could share my cover letter and resume with the students, and I agreed to that too.
When I got to the office that day, I chatted with the administrators for a little while and was then led to one of the classrooms to meet with the students. There were about ten people sitting at tables spread out in a way that seemed more suitable for independent study than classroom instruction and my first thought was, “Okay, adults need a lot more space.”
I sat down at the front of the room and got a nice introduction from the teacher who had organized the lesson. This was a Basic Education class, which means that the students are developing some fundamental skills and aren’t yet ready for a GED prep class. All but one of the learners were African-American, and most of them returned my friendly but uncomfortable smile.
The students asked me a few basic interview questions that they had pulled off the Internet the day before, but I did most of the talking. We went through my resume and I told some stories about teaching ESL in Russia and then Kindergarten as a substitute teacher. They asked where I saw myself in five years and to describe a time when I’d dealt with a conflict at work. Then one student came up with a question that he hadn’t found on a website or even written down. He was probably in his early forties and spoke deliberately to minimize a slight impediment in his speech.
“Well,” he said, “you’ve taught all these kinds of people before, but how you gonna teach us?”
Eight weeks in, that’s the question I’m still trying to answer—particularly in the lower-level reading and writing class. With that group, I’ve found that meeting the students’ learning needs, which in some cases requires phonics instruction and writing basics such as capitalization, while also acknowledging the knowledge and experience that they bring into the classroom as adults is a real challenge. Understandably, they have a pretty low tolerance for materials and tasks that are either too easy or too difficult, and in light of their mixed abilities, the success or failure of a particular lesson can be hard to anticipate.
With attendance inconsistent, my class looks a little different every day, so I’m always making last-minute adjustments, even after class has started, once I see which of the students have shown up. Just when I think the group is ready to take on a more challenging text, a student drops in who requires more support decoding words, for instance, or maybe isn’t a native English speaker, so the needs of the group seem to shift dramatically from class to class.
Needless to say, every day is pretty interesting, if not always successful. I’ve already had moments of getting down on myself about how ineffective the instruction feels at times or how difficult it is to chart any real progress, but I also remind myself that just showing up is a big step for many of the learners and that they are improving.
For me, the process that these adult students are engaged in—of overcoming very personal and long-standing challenges with literacy and academics—is both fascinating and difficult to wrap my head around. I’ve heard a lot of teachers say that they always learn as much as or even more than their students in the classroom and, in my experience, that’s definitely true.
If anyone has any input or resources that might benefit me or these students, I’d be open to and grateful for that, and I’ll keep writing about our efforts, just to keep from losing my mind.
Some students are referred through the Move Up program, funded by the Pennsylvania departments of Education and Welfare. Others walk in off the street hoping to improve their reading, writing and math skills or to attain their GED. We teach immigrants who have transitioned out of our center’s English as a Second Language program and a few learners who have been homeless and are currently living in shelters.
Initially, I was surprised by how respectful and engaged the students were in my classes and in the others that I observed. I’ve realized that this is a reflection of the safe and supportive environment that the program directors and other teachers have created. Attendance is pretty inconsistent, but the learners feel comfortable enough to assume their roles as students, despite the obstacles and failures they’ve experienced in the past, and the majority of them are committed to the process.
Before I interviewed for the job in May, my soon-to-be director asked me if I would mind being interviewed by some of the students. He said that one of the teachers wanted to create a lesson around job applications and interview skills, so I agreed to it. He also asked if the teacher could share my cover letter and resume with the students, and I agreed to that too.
When I got to the office that day, I chatted with the administrators for a little while and was then led to one of the classrooms to meet with the students. There were about ten people sitting at tables spread out in a way that seemed more suitable for independent study than classroom instruction and my first thought was, “Okay, adults need a lot more space.”
I sat down at the front of the room and got a nice introduction from the teacher who had organized the lesson. This was a Basic Education class, which means that the students are developing some fundamental skills and aren’t yet ready for a GED prep class. All but one of the learners were African-American, and most of them returned my friendly but uncomfortable smile.
The students asked me a few basic interview questions that they had pulled off the Internet the day before, but I did most of the talking. We went through my resume and I told some stories about teaching ESL in Russia and then Kindergarten as a substitute teacher. They asked where I saw myself in five years and to describe a time when I’d dealt with a conflict at work. Then one student came up with a question that he hadn’t found on a website or even written down. He was probably in his early forties and spoke deliberately to minimize a slight impediment in his speech.
“Well,” he said, “you’ve taught all these kinds of people before, but how you gonna teach us?”
Eight weeks in, that’s the question I’m still trying to answer—particularly in the lower-level reading and writing class. With that group, I’ve found that meeting the students’ learning needs, which in some cases requires phonics instruction and writing basics such as capitalization, while also acknowledging the knowledge and experience that they bring into the classroom as adults is a real challenge. Understandably, they have a pretty low tolerance for materials and tasks that are either too easy or too difficult, and in light of their mixed abilities, the success or failure of a particular lesson can be hard to anticipate.
With attendance inconsistent, my class looks a little different every day, so I’m always making last-minute adjustments, even after class has started, once I see which of the students have shown up. Just when I think the group is ready to take on a more challenging text, a student drops in who requires more support decoding words, for instance, or maybe isn’t a native English speaker, so the needs of the group seem to shift dramatically from class to class.
Needless to say, every day is pretty interesting, if not always successful. I’ve already had moments of getting down on myself about how ineffective the instruction feels at times or how difficult it is to chart any real progress, but I also remind myself that just showing up is a big step for many of the learners and that they are improving.
For me, the process that these adult students are engaged in—of overcoming very personal and long-standing challenges with literacy and academics—is both fascinating and difficult to wrap my head around. I’ve heard a lot of teachers say that they always learn as much as or even more than their students in the classroom and, in my experience, that’s definitely true.
If anyone has any input or resources that might benefit me or these students, I’d be open to and grateful for that, and I’ll keep writing about our efforts, just to keep from losing my mind.
