Youth in Adult Education

We’re in this Together

by Thomas Enright

A new face peers through the glass. When I wave the person into the classroom, I’m not surprised to see a young black man with a slightly frightened, tough-guy manner, saunter through the door.

“May I help you, Sir?”

“Yeah, I need my GED.”

“Well, you’ve come to the right place. Please have a seat while I finish this math problem…then you and I will start the registration process.”

He flops into an empty desk, seemingly uninterested, but carefully observing how we find the least common denominator among the three fractions we’re trying to add. He also glances around the room to size up his peers.

The math problem finished, I excuse myself from the class. My students are used to these sorts of interruptions. Indeed, that’s how most of them arrived here. So they know to go on to the next exercise. I’ll return soon enough.

Jamal, the new student, follows me down to our testing room. Along the way, I ask him why he ‘needs’ his GED. He informs me it’s because the judge said so. Further questioning reveals that this is not his first attempt at GED, nor is it the first school district he’s visited. Two weeks ago, he started in a different program, but he was asked to leave. Seems one of his ‘home-boys’ got into an altercation with the teacher. Another student joined the fray, so Jamal got involved. When the police arrived, Jamal was not one of those charged with anything, but he was barred from the classroom. Now he’s with me…but for how long? Jamal is 17 years old.

So where do we go from here?

We’ve all had situations like the one described above. Every teacher who has spent time with young adults recognizes Jamal. Here’s a kid who wants to learn, but who doesn’t want to appear vulnerable, nor ignorant. He thinks he’s presenting himself as an adult who’s got it all figured out, and who doesn’t need anyone telling him what to do (the judge notwithstanding). To us, he’s a confused kid who needs to be convinced there are things he still needs to learn…not just about fractions and the other GED skills, but about life. How do we bridge the gap?

My usual broad-brush approach is to try to get each student to see himself or herself as a member of the class. A member of the team. And a diverse team it is! Normally the age range is from 16 to 60. Since my class is daytime, I often have older folks, usually women, enrolled. Also, since the schoolhouse is not far from a military base, I’ll likely have a Filipino, Korean, Vietnamese, and the occasional Turk at a desk. Add to that the African-Americans and the Hispanics, and I have quite a mix sitting before me. BUT, they all have one thing in common…they want to learn something...and that’s the hook I use to gather them together.

Each person in the class, from the youngest to the oldest, has some knowledge that the rest of us lack. Likewise, each student learns different things at a different pace, and often in a different way (see, hear, touch). If I can convince them that they each have something to contribute to the others (be that math, English, or life), and that the others are interested, it goes a long way toward helping them learn the subject at hand, while also fostering regular attendance and long-term retention.

Early last year, I had a young student from the Dominican Republic who, for two days, complained about my method of teaching long division. I would lose her every time I worked a problem on the board. Yet she got the correct answers when we ran a quiz. What was going on? On day three I asked her to come to the board to demonstrate how she accomplished this. Well, it turned out that the way she learned long division in her country is almost a mirror-image of the way I learned/teach it. Not only that, but another student in the class (somewhat older, but more shy than the first), chimed in that the first student’s method was the same way she’d always done long division. So we all learned a couple of lessons: there are several ways to accomplish a task; and the teacher doesn’t necessarily know all those ways. The students, young and old, can help each other! It was a revelation to many in the room. It affected the atmosphere in the class for the rest of the year. Now I try to show them that I, too, learn from them. It’s a way to get them to band together to share their knowledge. And it’s a way to foster their self-confidence.

Then there was the ‘crunk’ incident. Turns out that’s a word young folks use to mean good or bad, depending on the context. One of my students graciously informed me that my method of explaining something, I don’t remember what, was “CRUNK!” I asked what he meant. All, and I mean all, of the younger students in the class burst out laughing. I, and the rest of the older folks, showed our confusion and ignorance. Now we all use the word from time-to-time, sometimes correctly, and sometimes incorrectly, but always to the delight of our younger members. Our team is crunk!

I hope Jamal thinks so.

Thomas D. Enright has an MBA in management and finance from the University of Colorado. He currently teaches daytime ABE/GED and evening ESL at the Northview Center in Universal City for the Comal, Guadalupe and Kendall Counties Adult Education Cooperative. His class enrollment typically runs the gamut from 16-year old court-ordered students, to 60 year-old grandmothers, to foreign-educated college graduates. Mr. Enright enjoys working with them all!