A model student

TB is almost always in class.  She lets us know if she or one of her three boys is sick.  She participates in other opportunities to improve herself or her family's situation--the Unity garden project or a Financial Literacy class.   She makes sure she is at her daughter's elementary school for special events.  She has followed through on my request that she be tested for a learning disability so that she can request accommodations in taking the GED exam.   But....we have to prove that she can pass the test with those accommodations.  And we have yet to do so, even after a year and a half of faithful attendance.

I know her reading and math and writing have all improved.  But the GED exam demands a level of abstract thinking and vocabulary and background and multi-step problem solving that I am not sure she is capable of doing. 

We are going to give her a certificate at our closing ceremony naming her our "student of the year."  I wish we could award a GED for effort.  Without that achievement, it will be hard for her to ever have a job that will enable her family to become self-sufficient.

Today is her birthday.  Her sons and I made her a birthday cake and we all shared it at circle time.  I hope she felt celebrated.

An iphone

  I am learning to use my iphone as a tool for Family Literacy.  Several students have texted me to ask to be excused from class.  Apparently even when there are no minutes for calling, one can still text.  I have taken a few photos and will send them on to the families. 

For a long time, I have wondered how we could read or listen or watch the daily news.  But it never seemed to work out very well for timing or for getting enough newspapers.    I have now downloaded a radio ap on my iphone and from there have downloaded a four minute NPR news summary and a one minute CNN news summary--both of which are updated hourly, I think.  We have listened to them as a class whenever I can squeeze in a brief activity.  I have posted places in the news on the board and also vocabulary such as "federal", "compound", "detainees", and "assassination."   I hope it is just one more way to expand the world of our students.

A cycle of frustration and futility

I called T today to see if she could be back in class next week after her week of orientation at her new job.  She said her car (recently purchased and trouble from the start) had caught fire today and she didn't know how she was going to keep her job.  The criteria for the work of transporting clients with handicaps was to have an insured car.  She was going to look for another one, dirt cheap, she said.  But that will just mean trouble again.

Added later--We learned that the car seat T had borrowed from our program was destroyed in the fire.  

Purging files

It's spring break and I have spent a few hours each of the last two days going through files dating back to 1994.  Many of the students' names are familiar, but not all.  Some of them resurface years later.  I saved all my plan and record books, all ILRs (Individual Learning Records), and newsletters from all the years.  I am ready to dump four large boxes of files.

It was a reminder of how the emphases have changed over the years.  We used  to have to list numbers for life-skills, we created portfolios, we did Starting Over programs with soft skills, and now the emphasis is on work place and transition to college.  

I also went through teaching materials dating back to the 1980s or earlier.  I will never use many of them again so out they went!  It was a trip through memory lane--the time I presented at a conference, the homework and test-taking workshops I did for students and their parents, the unsuccessful proposal I made to Educators Publishing Service to publish the change-of-letter technique.

Our recyclable container is full and there are still four boxes ready to go out.   But I did salvage some good ideas I had forgotten about and will look over again at my leisure.