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Maybe Nursing is Not for You…

1 Jun

… but please, don’t be a nurse…

I have never been one to stomp on a student’s dream.  As an advisor my job is to support and encourage a student’s dreams and plans for achieving their goals.  However, it pains me to talk to students who swear that getting a nursing degree is their one and only career goal — and s/he continuously fails basic math AND swears that s/he can’t stand anatomy and physiology.

I believe all human beings are smart, capable, and have something positive to contribute to the world — no matter how big or small.  So if you know a fellow student (or perhaps this person is you…) who just hasn’t figured out what that special SOMETHING is yet, there is hope for you yet.  Please understand:

IT’S OK TO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO DO WITH THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!

I am 34 years of age and my vision of my “ideal career” shifts as I learn new things about myself.  The person I was at 20 is not the same person I am today (thank God!).  Allow yourself some wiggle room for discovery in your first semester or two of community college — whether you are a student who is fresh out of high school or 45+ years of age.  Take that course that interests you — just because it’s available.  Worst case scenario: even if you don’t like it, at least you’ll know early on rather than wasting time and money on a major that doesn’t suit you.  Best case scenario:  you love it and decide to switch your major to something that moves you!

So, if you are currently a nursing — or pre-nursing major — only because it’s the only health career you know of, please take a look at this site:

www.explorehealthcareers.org

This site offers a wealth of information on at least 100 different careers in the health field.  Once you find something that peaks your interest, make an appointment to talk with your advisor and your career counselor to discuss developing a career path that is unique to your interests.  Just don’t end up like this…

Why Can’t Learning Look More Like This?

31 Mar

Yeah…  I love TED Talks.  If you ever need some inspiration for a new idea — or a new way of looking at an old idea, TED Talks is the place to go.  If I ever got invited to do a TED Talk, I’d just cry.  But back to the video…

Physics, art, theater, world cultures, psychology, technology, a little animal behavior research, and a lesson on teamwork thrown in for good measure.  FOLKS, THIS IS WHAT LEARNING SHOULD LOOK LIKE!

What Does Retirement in America Look Like?

27 May

This post is written in celebration of Older Americans Month.  Wider Opportunities for Women is marking this month with their 2nd Annual Blog Day event, where they are encouraging everyone to get involved in the discussion on issues concerning economic security for all.  See their website to view blog posts written by advocates and average citizens from across the country.

When I retire, I hope to spend it doing a lot of long-term leisurely travel around the world that I did not get to do while working and raising a family.  I have even considered a new career as a part-time health and wellness consultant, educating people about how to use food to stay healthy.  When not traveling or creating my own part-time income opportunities, I will probably volunteer a few hours a week tutoring adults in basic literacy.  I know that whatever I wind up doing in retirement, it will be my choice.  Unfortunately for many senior citizens, retirement planning was never really an option.

In the last few years it seems like more senior citizens are taking on jobs in retail and fast food — jobs that have traditionally been held by young teens.  As an advocate for the  rights of the working poor, I can’t help but to wonder about how their own education (or lack thereof) has led them to this work in their golden years.  I know there are some retirees who choose to take on 10 to 12 hours per week working at their local grocery store just to get out of the house — however I am not talking about them.  I want to learn more about those who are supposed to be retired, but find themselves working 30+ hours per week in low-paying jobs just to pay for food and shelter.

My fellow adult literacy teachers recognize who I am speaking of.  Just this past semester, I had a student in his early 60′s enrolled in my basic math class while also taking up free courses at his church to work in a restaurant.  He was also homeless.  He dropped out of my class towards the end of the semester because he said the pressure of doing both courses was too much for a person his age.  I tried to convince him to stay and finish, but he had already made up his mind.  In previous literacy classes, I have had retired women working as caretakers to their sick husbands, siblings, and even their grandchildren — all at the same time.  They worked in fast food a few hours a week to buy their grandchildren school clothes because their parents were unable to provide for them.

For many of us who serve older adults in literacy classes, retirement is just an age.  It has no real significance to be marked by a retirement party, the start of a new entrepreneurial endeavor, or the planning of long term travel to exotic locations around the world.  These folks are surviving day to day, hoping that God will provide all they need for themselves and their family members that depend on their ability to work.  So when you think of supporting funding for adult education, remember our senior citizens who need to learn to use computers, read prescriptions, use public transportation, and learn new job skills.

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Gladiolas for Mommy: What I Learned About Adult Ed from my Mom

10 May

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Mother’s Day is tough for me.  I lost my mom to breast cancer in 2006 when she was only 49 years old.  To be honest, it hurts to watch mothers and daughters — on any day — arm-in-arm giggling like old girlfriends.  It only reminds me that my mother was taken away from me when, as she said several months before passing, she still felt so young.

Even though my mom is gone now, I still celebrate the other mothers around me — Grandma, Nana, aunts, friends, and now my little sister who is a mother-to-be (WOW!!!).  I remember my mom by buying gladiolas — her favorite flower.  They grow tall, lean, and graceful with beautiful clusters of brightly colored flowers.  They remind me of my mom’s arms; she had a way of gesturing her arms when she was angry or making a joke that was just as elegant as those gladiolas.

So what does remembering my mother have to do with my blog?  My mom embodied what adult education is all about.  My mom hated change (but does anyone really enjoy change?).  However, as we all know, change is inevitable.  When I was very young she worked in a bakery at a grocery store.  I thought it was the coolest job ever because she’d bring home freshly baked breads at the end of her shift.  At some point, she decided she needed to do better and enrolled in a community college.  I remember her taking my sister and I to night and weekend classes when no one was available to babysit.  Mommy would sit us in the back with our Speak & Read to entertain us while she was learning how to be a good student.  I think it was here that she began to develop her own independence too.

Later in life, she and my father divorced after almost 20 years.   At this point, I was in college and my sister was close to finishing high school.  Our home had gone into foreclosure and we moved to a smaller apartment.  It was great to watch my mother set up that apartment.  I think it was the first time in life she was able to do something on her own.  Trying to convince the landlord that a woman who just lost her home, had a terrible credit score, AND had barely enough income to cover basic expenses — all with two teenagers in tow — would be a good tenant was difficult.  But she triumphed.  In the early months, grocery money was tight.  One day my sister and I elected to cash in our water jug filled with a little over $100 in pennies.  The feeling of having done something together to meet a basic need was empowering.  Then, Mommy wanted to put up curtains in the kitchen.  Having no idea how to use a drill, we went down to Home Depot, bought a basic drill, and we put those curtains up!  After it was all done, Mommy looked at our work and her face lit up with pride.  She lifted her graceful arms to show her muscles and proclaimed, “GIRL POWER!”  Even after all the change we endured together — the embarrassment of losing our home, moving to a new place, and worrying about money — I knew we would be fine.  And we were.

When Mommy was diagnosed with 4th stage cancer, she refused to stop living.  She researched all the latest wellness treatments that went beyond chemotherapy.  She wanted to use food to heal her from the inside out.  When she was forced to stop working, she decided to enroll back into college so she could get ready for when the doctor said she was cancer free.  She was excited to buy books and enjoyed talking to me every Sunday about what she had learned that week.  However, the cancer was too aggressive and she got to a point where she had to accept the fact that she was dying.

Even in the process of dying, Mommy continued to learn.  She contemplated how she could use what was left of her life to help others.  She said she was proud that I had chosen to become an educator, and my sister a nurse.  There were moments where it seemed as if she faced death without fear; other times she was begging God for just one more day.  Now I take all those wonderful lessons Mommy gave me and I thank her for the wonderful example of growth and strength she had been to me.

Our adult education classrooms are filled with people just like my mom.  Our students are going through changes they don’t always welcome with open arms, but are doing their best to find their way in the dark.

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Work, Love, and Gratitude

29 Apr

http://www.soulmatesuccess.com/images/gratitude9.jpg

Teaching is one of those jobs where you don’t always get a reward right away for all the hard work you put into it — all those hours spent planning a lesson, managing a larger than normal classroom, or being asked to create learning miracles with adult students who just came to you a month ago with a 5th grade reading level.  However I was lucky to experience an exception to this statement this past Tuesday.

I have been working with the Save Our Safety Net Campaign in DC to offer a blog post writing class for community based service providers and the many adults who utilize safety net services.  I walked them through the process of how to write a blog post on the campaign’s community blog.  I teamed up with the campaign’s Communications Director, Joni Podschun, and Ben Merrion from DC’s Adult Literacy Resource Center.  A week ago we worked with over 40 adult learners from Southeast Ministry and SOME Center for Employment and Training to assist them with learning to write blog posts and create video on the safety net issues that mattered to them most.  Many of the Southeast Ministry students used this as a time to practice writing testimony against Mayor Fenty’s $965,000 budget cut to adult education in 2011.

When the Southeast Ministry panel was called to the floor, I sat towards the back like a proud parent waiting for them to read words they passionately debated about in the blogging class.  The hearing was their opportunity to get an answer to the many questions I could not answer for them in class.  “How can they cut adult education?”  “If I can’t get my GED, what do they expect us to do?”  “Why don’t they see how important this is to us — our families?”  The truth is, me and a lot of other adult ed advocates have been asking those same questions for a long time.  But now it was their turn to showcase all they had learned in their community based learning programs functioning on a shoestring budget.  This was their opportunity to voice those opinions to the people who actually have some decision making influence in the District.  The learners sat before Councilman Gray and several other staff from other councilmembers’ offices.  Each learner shared a small piece of the circumstances that led to their participation in adult education and how Southeast Ministry had positively affected the learning of their children and other members of their family.  What is wonderful about this city’s Council is that they really do pay attention to adult learners and other constituents who utilize government services (it seems like they save their texting and chitchat for when the advocates take the mic, but hey…).  Councilman Gray let it be known that the cut to adult ed was not of his doing — it was Fenty’s — and he will not take any responsibility for something he had nothing to do with (point well taken).  Gray spent some time leading Covenant House so he has a great appreciation for what alternative and adult ed can do for people who are disconnected from formal school systems.

Once the learners left the panel, I saw such pride on the faces of the adult learners.  They had taken part in their city’s political process; for once, someone was listening to what they had to say about what mattered to them.  What a feeling of empowerment that must be!  The looks on their faces was yet another confirmation of a message the universe keeps sending over and over again: that I am doing EXACTLY what I was put here on the planet to do!  As they packed their belongings to leave the room, I looked at them all teary eyed and gave them all 2 thumbs up.  They straightened their backs, held their heads high and mouthed back, “Thank you…”  I LOVE THIS WORK and I thank all of the students for allowing me to fulfill my purpose through them.

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Don’t All Teachers Respect Their Students?

15 Apr

I defend my students’ intelligence, and I do so with love and conviction. Returning to the classroom as an ABE instructor was exactly what I needed to reinvigorate my spirit. If I could, I would be teaching at least 50% of the time. Many of the people I know who teach on a regular basis — no matter the subject or the student’s age — can relate to my first sentence. However, the other night when listening to my adult learners thoughts on what they enjoy most and least about my class, one of the things I heard repeatedly was that they feel respected in my class. And it’s not so much that they said it — it was HOW they said it. It was like they have never been in a classroom where they felt their ideas were respected. This is not the first time I have heard that comment from any of my students in past classes I’ve taught.

I have heard many of my students say that they don’t feel that many of their teachers in other classes, past and present, respect them the way I do. They feel the work I give them, for the most part, is challenging and I give them the tools to be able to meet the challenges. In all honesty, all I do is tell them they are capable and intelligent. I try my best to connect learning to the real world, or at least motivate them by talking about how far they’ve come and they’re that much closer to getting the GED. I don’t really think that what I do is any special secret. So when students tell me they feel respected, I have to wonder what is it that teachers are doing to make students feel like anything less than intelligent.

Some may take my comments to mean that perhaps my classes are EASY and they don’t have to do much to do well. I beg to differ. I make my students work. I tell them that anything less than your best is not acceptable.  In fact, many take that statement to heart and are embarrassed to come to class NOT having done the homework. However, I don’t beat them over the head for choosing not to do the work (and it IS a choice…). When they don’t do their homework, I don’t make a class spectacle out of them. They feel embarrassed because they know I am disappointed.

I think what many people forget is that adult students in ABE and GED classes are learning how to be good learners while juggling the pressures of work and family life. Many others who went to school the traditional route had the freedom to be children for at least 18 years while learning to be good students.  This does not excuse adult learners from doing their class work, it just means that teachers need to be cognizant of the fact that behavior change for adults takes time.

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For Teachers, By Teachers

22 Mar

A long overdue post…  This post is about professional development.  Part of the reason it has taken me so long to post anything is because I have been hard at work creating my own professional development opportunities — holding down a full time job, getting a doctorate, and teaching 2 nights a week.  So here’s the latest in my life…

I had a wonderful time attending the 3rd Annual Montgomery College AELG Professional Conference For Teachers By Teachers on Saturday, March 13th.  It is the first professional development conference I have EVER been to that was designed specifically for classroom teachers.  Most of the professional conferences I attend are a mixture of teaching, administration, and policy — with the conference topics driven by what administration view as priorities.

I started teaching ABE language and math classes twice a week at Montgomery College in February 2010.  The conference was a great place to meet other teachers, a handful of whom have been teaching in the program for 10 to 15 years (gotta love the dedication to the profession!).  Among the topics of conversation professional development needs.  Some of the teachers did not have graduate level training in teaching (I am speaking anecdotally; I don’t have any stats on the education of the teachers at the school.).  However, many of the teachers worked as volunteer teachers in ESL and GED classrooms for a number of years before venturing out to teaching at the community college.  Those that did have graduate level training were interested in opportunities that would bring some new life to what they have been doing for years.

The problem with attending professional development is that it is SOOOO expensive — particularly here in the DC metro area.  There are several wonderful graduate programs in ESL and other courses related to adult education (instructional design, educational technology, etc.).  Private schools like American University and George Washington University can cost as much as $1000 PER CREDIT!  I am paying about $950 per credit at George Mason University, a state school in VA, but that’s only because I’m an out-of-state student (I plan to make that $$$ back after graduation by working overseas once I finish my classes…).  Many of the teachers would love to participate in these classes, however the life circumstances of adults may not make that a feasible option.  Many of them have careers in other fields and teach in the evenings out of the sheer joy.  Some teachers are taking care of children or elders ON TOP OF TEACHING — try fitting professional development into that crazy schedule!  Others are retired, or close to it, and don’t see how paying tens of thousands of dollars for professional development at a university would be a worthy investment.  That’s why I appreciate the graduate certificate in adult education at the University of the District of Columbia run by Dr. Maigenet Shifferaw.  It was free for me to attend (and perhaps still is) for all adult educators working in DC.  But programs like that are rare…

The problem with the high cost of professional development for adult educators is the fact that the need for teachers of non-credit ESL, ABE, and GED classes is that the need is increasing — particularly as the skills needed for even the most entry level positions requires postsecondary education.  Dean Donna Kinerney talked of how the AELG program serves about 12000 students a year , a number funders cannot ignore.  The image of workforce development departments in community colleges is that they are fun, leisure classes that do not lead to a substantial credential — and this is partially true.  However the ESL, ABE, and GED courses are a necessity for many adults who desperately need basic skills to gain entrance into college and job training programs that will lead to a self-sufficient wage.  Community colleges across the country are focusing on pushing these students through to college level courses.  But can that really happen with teachers who don’t have the appropriate training?  How can we make professional development available for teachers to make that push to college level courses a reality for more students?  Are teachers the only ones who are responsible for this?  What do you think?

For Djamila: Reflections on Becoming an Adult Educator

8 Feb

Soap Making Training. photographer credit: Halona Y. Agouda © 2007

When I was 23, I left my mom’s apartment in NJ to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Togo, West Africa for 2 years in a small village of about 300 people.  I worked with female farmers in agricultural cooperatives by day.  At night, I would light both a kerosene lamp and a candle in an unsuccessful effort to get enough reading light for my books and journal writing.  My best friend was a 16-year old girl named Djamila.  Upon my arrival to village, she spoke little French and I hardly spoke any Kotokoli, but over time, we were able to teach other and figured out how to communicate.  I loved hanging out with her because she gave me a lot of insight into what it was like to be a young woman growing up in Togo.  One of the biggest topics of conversation amongst her and her girlfriends was leaving the slow village life for something more exciting in Lome, Togo’s capital, or even traveling to other countries like Gabon.  Lome and Gabon represented opportunity.  They could go there to make and sell food, wear the best pagnes, then marry a rich man and be set for life.

One day Djamila and a couple of her girlfriends came to my home for lunch.  While in the middle of a gossip session, she gave me a picture of her to send to my family in America.  She wanted to assure them that I was well taken care of in village.  I picked up a pen and gave it to her to write her name on the back.  She looked at the pen, then looked at me and apprehensively shook her head no.  It is not unusual for women in Togo to not have basic reading and writing skills because of poverty and gender discrimination.  Educating girls is often not valued, particularly for a poor rural family.  If you had to choose between paying school fees for your daughter who would grow up to be a wife in another man’s family OR buying food, what would you choose? I took the pen back and asked Djamila to tell me the letters of her first name.  She looked at the floor, squirmed in her seat, and again shook her head no.  I had embarrassed her.  It was the first time I really understood what it meant to not be able to read and write.

I responded to Djamila’s embarrassment at not being able to write by changing the subject.  I served everyone a plate of rice and dried fish sauce and turned on the radio.  As we sat on the floor, eating the rice mixture from the same plate with our fingers, I looked at the girls and how they laughed and joked with one another.  In some ways, they were no different from my friends and I at 16.  We worried about the future.  We worried too much about what boys thought of us.  But I also had plans for life.  I knew I was going to grow up to be something — I wasn’t sure what, but I was sure I was going to grow up and be something big.  These girls were fully aware that there was really nothing in village for them to stick around for.  However, they also knew that they lacked the tools needed to get up and out of there.

Tuesday was market day and I gathered in the center of village with all the others to buy tomatoes and onions for the week while catching up on the latest gossip.  I heard stories of other young people who left village on their own to go to Lome, and sometimes even Gabon.  But there was also the stories of men who would come to village promising families that if they take their children away to a nearby country, they would be able to find work and make good money to send back to the family.  Quite frankly, the story sounded a little suspect to me.  Why would anyone volunteer to take someone else’s kids to another country?  What was in it for them?  I did a little research and asked a few of my Togolese NGO contacts I had made in a nearby town.  They explained that the men my village described were traffickers.  This was my first time hearing of this and I wanted to know more.  Traffickers are paid to come into rural villages, tell poor rural families that they could ease their burden by offering to take their children someplace far that would offer them better opportunity for an education, a job, and money to send home to the family.  Many families fell for it –  including Djamila’s.

Djamila’s mother was the one who broke the news to me.  It was a Tuesday — market day — and I had gone to pick up Djamila at her family compound to make our rounds around the village and greet everyone before heading to the market.  I remember I got to the house and everyone looked sad as soon as they saw my face.  I asked, “Where’s Djamila?”  One of the women in the compound who spoke some English came up to me and explained that Djamila was gone and was not coming back.  It was like I got kicked in the stomach; I lost my best friend.  I politely excused myself while the women got ready to head to the market.  I walked back to my house avoiding eye contact with everybody I passed.  I didn’t want them to see me crying.  I ran in the door to my house, pulled back the mosquito netting on my bed, and collapsed.  I cried for Djamila and all the other girls and boys who were denied an opportunity to make something of their lives because they were poor.

I am not sure if families were really tricked into believing the traffickers’ stories, or if they were so desperate to believe in anything that remotely sounded like a good opportunity that they jumped at the first chance they got.  Djamila is the reason I became an Adult Educator.  She inspired me to want to do something for everyone who missed their first shot at an education by going through the system.  There are millions of people around the world just like Djamila — including the United States.  I just started teaching an ABE course at Montgomery College, and I have 2 18-year olds who can’t read or write much of anything.  This surprises me (even though it shouldn’t) because they just left the formal school system less than a year ago.  How did they drop out of school at 18 and take a placement test for an alternative school program, only to be placed in an ABE class?  If it isn’t the world’s school systems that are pushing people out, it is poverty and culture (yes, I said it…) that bars people from ever being able to get into the front door of a school at all.

Adult Ed Gets No Respect

7 Jan

I’ve been thinking about the presence of adult education in the news.  The Brookings Institute released a study in early December 2009 called, “Invisible: 1.4% Coverage for Education is Not Enough.”  1.4% is the percentage of news coverage focused on education from Jan – Sept ’09.  So how much of that educational coverage focused on adult education?  Of that tiny percentage, 2.9% of the education news focused on community colleges.  While community colleges do a lot to try to meet the needs of different types of adult learners, they do not meet the needs of all adult learners — particularly those that do not have the basic skills to enroll in college level courses.  What is unclear from the study is the amount of coverage focused on the hundreds of community based nonprofit organizations that offer basic literacy, GED, External Diplomas, and job training courses.  The Brookings study had passing mentions of alternative education programs which can fall under the realm of a formal state supported school, or a community based program — it’s just not clear.  So perhaps adult education is in need of a new identity.

Adult ed is in need of a new identity because of the many misconceptions people have about it.  For the most part, adult ed is still looked upon as education for people who couldn’t hack it the first time around.  Quite frankly, some of that blame lies on those of us who are part of the profession.  We do a terrible job of letting the world know the value of what our programs offer to adult learners who often do not have the resources to attend college or more expensive job training options.  I know of many colleagues who put their heart in their work as teachers and administrators because they believe that their students are worth the time and effort.  We, as an adult education community, get the importance of our work.  But the rest of the world just doesn’t get it.  So what can we do to make it better?

I think the adult ed community is only beginning to understand the importance of social media.  What will using social media to its fullest extent do for us?  Give us some respect! If we don’t let the world know about our work, who will?  Some of the reasons may include:

Not enough money and/or staff

Social media is free.  As long as you have internet access, you should have no problem accessing all types of social media.  Most adult ed organizations have volunteers and interns whom you trust to teach classes.  What’s the problem with getting a volunteer or intern to help you develop a social media presence?

Lack of computer skills amongst adult ed practitioners

In speaking with people who organize professional development for adult educators, there is often a problem with getting teachers to invest in long term computer skill training.  This problem is also pervasive amongst K-12 educators and higher education faculty as well.  If you have developed or have been a part of successful technology training program for educators at any level, please contact me and let me know all about it.

Students/clients don’t use computers and/or the internet

I am starting to find that this assumption is no longer valid — particularly with younger students in adult ed programs.  Some of my students have had Facebook and MySpace pages that they use to keep up with their friends.  It seems that just about every college and university is using blogs, Facebook, and Twitter to recruit students.  However marketing education programs can have multiple purposes — marketing to students is only one of them.  Education programs should also be marketing to attract volunteers, potential employees, funders, news media, etc.  Participating in social media allows you to participate in a much larger conversation about what you have to offer that extends beyond your students.

So here are some examples of DC’s social media presence:

If you are an adult ed organization anywhere on the planet who is using social media, let me know about it!  I plan to create a blog post in the near future about all the organizations doing interesting things with social media.

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