Sucess Stories

Caution Adult Learners: Futures Under Construction!

by Dr. Robert G. Tatman
Crosby ISD

Working with adults trying to get their GED reminds me of Wyatt Earp’s quip about gunfights. The successful lawman noted that in a gunfight you should, “Take your time, but hurry!” GED students are often in dire straights also. Though not life and death situations, their plight is between futures of hope or despair. Students aren’t always ready or able to learn, and sometimes both. A teaching colleague recently shared that one of her students exclaimed, “Why Miss, you’re trying to teach us things we don’t know!” Exactly. A young learner’s simple observation holds profundity for all adult education teachers. Ours is the challenge to teach our students many things that they don’t know as we fill in canyon-like learning gaps. To bridge such chasms we must get students ready and willing to learn utilizing all the creativity we can muster. Strategies are presented that provide a sampling of different pedagogical approaches I attempt in my quest to reach all students.

1. Make a variety of efforts to introduce students to themselves. Students need to become acquainted with their abilities, limitations, dreams, and the assets and liabilities associated with their personalities and learning styles. Students write in every class on personally reflective topics such as goals, persons of influence, major life moments and decisions.
2. Be vigilant to maintain assessments throughout the semester in order to know when re-teaching and re-evaluating will be necessary. Mastery learning must drive instruction in order to promote students’ test-taking success.
3. Be a detective when getting to know your students. Leonard Pellicer wrote that true leaders aren’t the ones out ahead of everyone else in the pack. “Rather, the best leaders are precisely in the middle of the beliefs, dreams, and values of those whom they lead.”
4. Affirm students genuinely and regularly. Since everyone does something good at some point in time, make the effort to publicly notice students. According to Ann Landers, all people wear signs that say, “Look at me!” In the words of the best fortune cookie fortune I ever received: “Spend the rest of your life lifting people up!”
5. Ensure that students know that you love them for who they are as people, not for what they do, accomplish, or produce. Encourage them with what they can become. The Pennsylvania School Board Journal from the 1800’s noted that poorest man is not one without a cent, but the one without a dream.
6. Expose students to as many different learning environments as possible. Since I hold classes in a local high school, I have my students work in computer labs to incorporate on-line GED practice testing, and use the library for resources.
7. Stress to students that a major component of their success on the GED test will be the work they do outside of class. I give students homework they must complete before the following class, and are instructed to bring questions they have to class. This method saves more time for in-class instruction and contributes to students taking test preparation seriously.
8. Promote peer teaching during the class. Benefits to this arrangement abound. Students reinforce their own learning, build confidence in their own abilities, and feel good about helping others.
9. Facilitate students bring organization to their lives. Students need support and guidance in setting goals, designing schedules which allow them to study, and making the necessary preparations for post-GED education. Students living out balancing acts because of jobs, families, and other commitments appreciate your efforts to improve their lives.
10. Emphasize relationships with and among the students. Teach students that it is okay to depend on each other. Leonardo De Vinci said that an arch is simply two weaknesses that come together to form a strength – a perfect picture of a classroom built on co-dependency and collaboration.

In addition to these strategies, I have students read excerpts from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay Self-Reliance and then have them script reflective thoughts about conforming to the crowd or following the voice of their own conscience. We watch segments of a documentary about Robert F. Kennedy and ask what makes a great leader. A discussion ensues wherein students capture those traits which make the man or woman a great leader. Students then discuss the convictions that leaders espouse. For example, RFK found it immoral to not challenge injustice. To help the adult learner be successful, I also have them do plenty of board work and take every opportunity to have students read their writings aloud. The whole class – and the teacher – benefit from a class context where the students are the key actors and the teacher is simply the director/facilitator.

I view students as always being able to become better than they are. I teach that adult students owe it to themselves and their families to improve in all areas of life. I teach that they might grow, develop, and mature. I reinforce that truth spoken by Harry Emerson Fosdick that no person need stay the way he or she is! I also adhere religiously to Thomas Friedman’s inequality that a student’s curiosity quotient (CQ) added to their passion quotient (PQ) is always greater than their intelligence quotient. With purposeful direction, I draw out student’s innate curiosity knowing that for the most part that few if any have been asked their advice, opinions, or viewpoints!

In the spirit of NCLB, join with me in swearing allegiance to not leaving any adult learners behind. The success of my dreams must rest on the fulfillment of the dreams of those I teach. I believe in students. I believe that they can and do make me better. I count student input as significant enough for me to grow, think better, and more importantly, be better.

Since every educator for adult learners owes something to the up-building of adult education, think about the contribution you could make. Meditate on what was spoken by a supporter of Martin Luther King who said that one of his greatest gifts was giving people the feeling that they could be bigger and stronger and more courageous and more loving than they thought they could be. Sounds like a great job description for all those who call their professional home the adult education classroom. Love your students since, also according to MLK, you must first love those whom you wish to change. Not everyone can be a good teacher, and hardly anyone can be a great teacher – so get to work!

Successful adult education instructors, in each class, must live out personal traits that include flexibility, humor, teachability, story-telling skill, patience, self-control, and endurance. These effective teachers must also be proficient in all the subject areas, and have a keen sense and ability to always make time for individual attention without neglecting group plans and goals. My desire is that you teach so well that, just like the student singing To Sir With Love to her teacher, you also will be called ‘best friend’ by those who call you teacher. So, be the best so your students can be the best. Love your students for who they are as people. In the words of Andy Taylor to his son from an episode of The Andy Griffith Show, when Opie had run away from home for changing some F’s to A’s on his report card, “Opie, I don’t love you because of what you do, I love you because you’re my son!”

Pellicer, L. (2007). Caring enough to lead: How reflective practice leads to moral leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA. SAGE.

Friedman, T. (2005). The world is flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century. Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.

Emerson, R. W. (1841). Self-Reliance, first series.

About the Author

Dr. Robert G. Tatman is the district personnel administrator for Crosby ISD. He graduated from Purdue University with a B.S. in Math, a Master in Theology from Dallas Seminary, a M.Ed. from Stephen F. Austin State University, and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from Sam Houston State University. He taught secondary-level math for 16 years, and has been an administrator for 12 years with experience in community college education, transportation, special education, career and technology, federal programs, NCLB, and personnel. He has been married for 26 years and has four children.