Bits and pieces

My husband and I drove five students to the County-City building to vote early today.  Actually, only two of them voted.  Two forgot or couldn't find their ID cards and one wanted to vote on Election Day.  The two that were without IDs had never voted before.  I insisted they come along with us anyway, hoping that they would see it wasn't all that scary to vote. 

A bit of follow-up on last week's posts:  K, the student I was picking up, never called this week.  I will send her a note saying we are sorry we have lost her from the program. I am sorry.   T, the student I felt was not getting enough done, has passed three predictor tests and has worked much harder this week.  She told another staff member that she sees now how little she knew when she started and how much she has learned.

Two students took the GED exam this week and will be waiting for at least a month for their results.  Two others are close to being ready to take it.

Three others are weaker students .   I have tried  having them work as partners or in a small group and this seems to promote accountability.  You can't just skip over the hard questions or look at the answers in the back first if you are working with someone else.  The students struggle together and I hear them teaching and correcting each other.  When they are all stuck, they call on me.  One of these young ladies has been rather sullen, but when working with someone else, she seems to be blossoming a bit.

Maybe this is one of those "21st Century Skills"  my supervisor and others keep talking about--working as a team.  In any case, I think it is more fun and probably promotes learning through more modalities--seeing, hearing, writing, and talking.

We have one new Hispanic student.  She has not been in school for maybe four years--since she was 15 years old.   Her children speak Spanish only.  I have been impressed with her ability to learn quickly--even in just two days of class.  I hope she will stick with us--she is a minority in our class where African-Americans are a majority.  In fact, she's the only non-African-American.