From Dragonfly: GED Countdown

So, as you know, I work as a GED tutor. What that means is that I spend my days working with students on the 5 subject areas: math, science, social studies, writing (test and essay), and reading. Students tend to move at their own pace, even though we do have full-class assignments most days. Every couple months, students are submitted for TABE tests. There are three levels of TABE - an easy, a medium, and an advanced. If students do well on the easy TABE, the next time they test, they will take the medium or the advanced. Once a student scores well on either the medium or advanced TABE, the student is signed up for an official GED Pre-Test. The Pre-Test is closer to the actual GED test in most ways than the TABE. Once a student scores well enough on the Pre-Test (which we do every 1-2 months), they are signed up for the official GED Test. Om order to pass, students have to receive a 410 minumum score on all subject areas with at least a 450 average. Each subject test is out of 800 points. Sometimes, students are doing well in several subjects, but struggling in just one - usually math. When that happens, we do more intensive teaching on the subject. Well, that's how we usually do things.

For the past week, I have had a class of 10 students who are taking the GED next week. Instead of keeping them in the classroom assigned, the instructors pulled them out and put them in a math-intensive, all-day GED study class. All but one of the students is not so excited to sit in a classroom all day. The GED test changes early in 2014, and it is important they pass before that time, or they will have to start all over again with some harder material. Why I was selected to put together the curriculum and spend my full days with these students, I'm not sure, but I am enjoying it. The white board in the room we are using looks like one from "A brilliant mind" or "good will hunting" where there are equations everywhere and numbers and answers and geometric shapes... it's kind of cool! I spent 2 hours this morning helping students set up how to solve algebraic word problems. If I took the GRE (graduate record examination) again (since I last took it in 2010), I would imagine my math score will increase 10 fold!!! In fact, I may just do that, if I have to start applying all over again for grad school... I hope I don't!

So, for 4 days, I have been with these students. Although, we are down to 8 students as of today. The teacher in charge officially kicked 2 students out of the intensive study class and won't test them next week. Not because they aren't capable, but due to attitude. They were disruptive to everyone and didn't want to be there. One thing the tutors and teachers agree on, is that we can't want the students to get their GED more than the student does. They won't be tested unless they have the right attitude.

I try to focus the students away from their low self-esteem on what they didn't learn earlier in life and struggle with today. To me, it is not about what they don't know (they do not need a perfect 800 on the test). It is about how much they DO know, and how much more they've learned since starting these classes. That's what matters! I hope to celebrate in a couple months when we officially learn how many of these students pass the test before the end of December. I'll know that I may have helped them understand a new concept or as happened yesterday in class, "I just had an epiphany.... I get it!!!" one of the students yelled out. A worthwhile job indeed.