5. Parents get GED while children get attention, too
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| Photo By Doug Kerr – PA Keystone SignUploaded by GrapedApe, CC BY-SA 2.0, |
Shamokin, PA–located right in the Coal Region–is offering an Adult Education and Family Literacy Program, which provides a safe place for children to learn while their parents study for the GED test.
“Participants spend the first half hour engaging in interactive literacy activities with their children like reading books and putting together puzzles.
The children are then taken to an adjacent room filled with toys, puzzles and games where they are attended to by Ceil Zurick, a childcare specialist, while the parents work with Williams [an instructor] on their educational goals.”
One of the main reasons why parents who pursue adult education miss tutoring sessions/prep classes on a given day is because of not having a safe place to leave their kids.
I’m a firm believer that family always has to come first, so I’ve never minded when students canceled because of this. In fact, I’ve actually had students bring their kids to tutoring sessions before.
Not only does this program sound like a lot of fun for kids, but there are several benefits to this that immediately come to mind.
The obvious benefit is that the parent is able to pursue their educational goals, but also, I’m sure children who go through the program will gain benefits from it for many years to come!
Regina Suiit–a leading authority in adult education–has said before that a mother’s education is the best indicator for predicting how a child will perform academically (see previous roundup).
This GED test program in Shamokin is really onto something here, and I predict it will pay dividends to the whole community for long into the future; it just might take a while to see it.
4. Given opportunity, these 3 succeeded in GED program
Amy Meek from the United Way in Citrus County, Florida is back again as promised this week with more GED test success stories!
The theme of her article this week is accountability- a critical component for achievement!
Meek says: “When our GED students understand they are being held accountable, they perform at a higher level.”
I couldn’t possibly agree more with Meek on this!
One of the GED success stories Meek shares is about a student who was enrolled in the program at the United Way off and on for several years. She then started meeting with a program coordinator weekly to set and review short-term goals.
To quote Meek again: “By setting and achieving small goals, she was able to complete her GED in six months. Her goal is to enroll in cosmetology school.”
From my experience, it’s very common in adult education to find students who go after their goal of passing the test sporadically in this fashion.
Characteristically, when they first start a prep program, they’re very enthusiastic.
In fact, they’re often so enthusiastic that they want to learn everything there is to know right there on the spot, and want to meet very frequently (sometimes they’ll ask to meet outside of the scheduled program hours, etc…).
Anyone who’s been around adult education long enough will definitely recognize the type, as they initially come across as star pupils.
Many of them truly are star pupils- that is until a few weeks in when they begin showing up late to class, pushing back tutoring sessions, or sometimes leaving programs all together.
Why is it that sometimes the same students who initially appear so eager to achieve their goals end up leaving programs like this?
Picture in your mind a rubber band. If you took that rubber band and sat it down on a table, you’d obviously see that the rubber band is already stretched to a certain point, wouldn’t you?
And you’d see that if you try to stretch the rubber band beyond this point, it immediately “tries” to snap right back into place where it was before.
Dr. Maxwell Maltz coined this effect “the snap-back effect” in his classic work The New Psycho-Cybernetics after he made the observation that individuals can’t outperform their own self-image for very long before they fall right back into their old habit patterns.
It’s not that they want to leave the prep programs so much as that they lose sight of the finish line as the demands in their lives pile up.
A quality tutor/instructor must hold these students accountable in a positive, constructive way to help lift them up to reach their full potential, and to really bring out the star pupil in them that’s already there.
Now, clearly I’ve never met or worked with the student Meek is talking about here, so this is all just pure speculation on my part.
My point here is not about arguing whether or not the student in the success story “fits the mold” of the adult education students I’ve been describing.
My point is to emphasize the fact that many students in adult education have had bad experiences with education when they were younger that are still impacting them today (often on an unconscious level), and that we need to be aware of the reality of the snap-back effect for these students.
Raising accountability for students from a place of both compassion and positive expectation is crucial for helping facilitate the paradigm shift necessary to get them back on track after set backs so that they can experience the success they deserve.
Meek and the United Way seem to be doing a lot right here, and I’m again looking forward to reading the third and final part in the series!
Coralys Perez is a single mom who passed the HiSET exam and is now enrolled to complete a free two-year liberal arts curriculum to earn her associate’s degree.
The free liberal arts program came about as the result of a joint effort between The Care Center in Holyoke, Massachusetts, and Bard College in New York.
Ms. Perez tried multiple high school equivalency programs, but the program offered by The Care Center was the best fit for her needs, as it offered her assistance with transportation, health care, child care (Ms. Perez is a single mother), and counseling services, which really allowed her to focus on her education.
The liberal arts program Ms. Perez is currently enrolled in offers her these same services.
Here’s a great quote from the article about this program:
“It’s an education-first approach to ending poverty that the architects of the microcollege say gives them the best shot at ensuring that the short-term social services they provide translate into long-term upward mobility for the students and their children.”
In this article by Amanda Drane, which also talks about The Care Center & Bard College’s free liberal arts program, Drane shares a quote from a lecture given by Bard College professor Dr. Mary Anne Myers.
In her lecture, Myers discussed how women are continuing to make social progress, but that the progress has not been in a straight line.
This is a very interesting point, because I think our everyday life has conditioned us to a certain degree to think that women’s social progress has occurred in a straight line pattern kind of like this:
When in reality it’s been more like this:
My belief is that if you were to substitute progress in education, health care, or poverty, in place of social progress, you’d see basically the same trend.
There’s one last point I want to make here about the The Care Center & Bard College’s program.
I will say from my experience though that I’ve worked with many single male parents.
I’d really love to see these same opportunities be made more readily available to them as well!
2. On the Inside: Prison Education Saves Money
Jan Walker reports that Washington State may pass a bill (SB 5069) that will offer adult offenders in prisons throughout the state to obtain associates degrees while serving time behind bars.
Here are some alarming facts from the article:
“Mass incarceration nationwide is estimated to cost $80 billion taxpayer dollars per year. The studies cited by our Legislature include a 2013 Rand Corp. report that found every dollar spent on education inside prisons saved $5 in recidivism costs. A 2014 Washington state public policy study estimated a $20 return for every dollar invested in correctional education.”
Walker states that investing in education in the prison systems makes society as a whole safer, and I am in complete agreement with her on this important point.
High school equivalency degree programs are becoming more and more common in prisons, but if this bill passes, it will be an even bigger leap forward.
Walker is the author of several books, including Unlocking Minds in Lockup: Prison Education Opens Doors. I am definitely planning to buy and read her book, as this is an area of interest of mine!
1. Kentucky Lawmakers Send Bill Gradually Repealing Common Core to Governor
While Kentucky was the first state to adopt the Common Core State Standards back in 2010, an education bill with a plan to phase out Common Core was passed in the Senate this week with a 37 – 0 vote, and was sent to Republican Governor Matt Bevin.
If you read my round up a few weeks ago in which I discussed Kentucky House Bill 195, which eliminates the GED test in Kentucky and allows for replacement with another high school equivalency diploma instead, you’ll see that we now have some more insight into the purpose of why HB 195 was written.
Since the 2014 GED test was designed to be aligned to the Common Core standards, and since Kentucky will likely be repealing Common Core, we can see that eliminating the GED test in Kentucky is the only option that makes sense.
Originally, it seemed that HB 195 was put forth in response to the significantly lower numbers of Kentucky adults taking it since it’s 2014 implementation.
However, I now think it’s very plausible that HB 195 was written mostly with the anticipation that Common Core will be phased out in the future.
All we can do for now is wait and see how this all plays out…
Other Roundups:
- Adult Education/GED News Roundup, Week Of March 19th – March 25th, 2017
- Adult Education & GED News Roundup – Week of March 12th – March 18th, 2017
- Adult Education and GED News Roundup, Week of March 5th – March 12th, 2017
- GED Test News Roundup – Week of Feb. 26th – March 4th
