A Unique Obstacle in Adult Learning

Teaching adults at the literacy council is a much different experience than tutoring fellow students on campus. I work with different materials, learning approaches, references, and examples. But there is another aspect of this comparison that separates these two extra-curricular activities, and every week I enter the Literacy Council I am confronted by it.

Adult learners are in the GED prep program because, obviously, they did not complete their high school degree and they wish to do so. There are a variety of reasons that a person does not complete her high school degree, and I’m sure readers can brainstorm what these reasons may be. The adults that drop out of high school and come to the literacy council do not suddenly lose those reasons. Perhaps the curriculum was too slow and she felt bored, uninterested; that person will still want a faster-paced curriculum. Maybe there were financial or family issues that impeded progress in a highly-structured environment like a high school; that person may still experience those same burdens, and they could even be heightened.

Remember in my earlier posts that I was tutoring two girls? I blogged about the challenges of making a small-group tutoring session work and the dynamics of the students during this time. Unfortunately, one of those girls has not been in the tutoring session for a few weeks, and she is dangerously close to being removed from the program. This truly saddens me, and every week I hold on to the hope that she will show up. (However, my concern if this happens is that I am already that much further ahead with the student that does come regularly every week—how can I bridge the gap? Perhaps this is a question for another time.)

I spoke with one of the coordinators at FCLC about this dilemma, and she said that this happens frequently in an adult learning program. Things like family issues, economic troubles, and transportation problems keep a person from being able to regularly visit the council, and so the list of students at the council is always changing. She told me that perhaps right now is not the best time for my student to come. Maybe she has other things on her mind.

In college tutoring, the students typically don’t have serious problems like that. Their biggest worry might be that there is a paper due the next day, that they have to pull an all-nighter, or that the liquor store closes before their class is over. I know that I am generalizing—a lot of college students have serious problems, too. My financial problems are what brought me to Shippensburg in the first place, so I understand this frustration. But school, for most of us in our late teens and early twenties, is still priority number one. This is not always the case with learners at the literacy council—their education may come second to their job or family, and this is totally understandable. A volunteer tutor needs to keep this in mind and be flexible or the tutor/student relationship will not survive. Every week that I come into the Literacy Council, there is a chance that my students cannot make it. There is no school bus faithfully waiting to pick them up every morning, and right now, finding a location that is hiring so that she can make money and pay for life’s necessities is more important than making it to our tutoring session every Wednesday morning. I think, as a college student, I take for granted the opportunities I have that enable me to learn—I have a supportive family, a fairly reliable mode of transportation, and a wonderful financial aid package that keeps me in school. But not all of the students at the literacy council are offered these chances, and so while it initially frustrated me to learn week after week that my student couldn’t make it, I have to step back and see the big picture.

Hopefully my student comes back because I envision making real progress with her. However, I realize that I have very little control over the matter. The best thing that I can do is be there for her when she’s ready and has everything else figured out, because that is the only time she’ll really be able to learn.