Why do adults choose the Durango Adult Education Center to earn a GED instead of completing high school in a traditional setting?
Stereotypes abound: the pregnant teen; the guy with substance abuse or attitude issues; the student with incarcerated parents. Some adult learners fit those stereotypes, but the majority of our students are unique in that they have taken a road less traveled on their educational path – a road that brings them experiences that sometimes bring more challenges.
Our certified teachers are happy to help every adult, and some of our students have the sorts of disruptions in life that mean they just aren’t cut out for the routines and demands required by public school. Adult learners are bright, motivated, and need a different and accelerated approach to reach their goals.
Brenda is in her late 40s, has three teenaged children and has worked through her personal problems well enough so that she earned her GED in just six months.
Marguerite is from the South Seas and married a former U.S. military man who brought her back to the States. She plans to get a degree in human resources and needs a high school degree to be eligible for financial aid for college. After two years of daily studies, she’s now a graduate. Marguerite reflects the experience of adults from foreign countries who seek a pathway into the professional world, and often arrive with a diploma and even some college credit that doesn’t always translate into a verifiable, usable degree.
These adults may begin in our English as a Second Language classes and then move into GED classes. These students hunker down to learn new vocabulary in unfamiliar and often-perplexing English; they utilize our distance-learning online programs from home or the library. And they huddle with their tutors to scramble over the last hurdle of language arts to make their essays coherent and cogent. They are some of our most devoted students, who go on to college and contribute significantly to our community.
Then there is Viola, a quiet, composed young woman, so quiet that in her earlier years, some people mistook her verbal reticence for stupidity. Viola’s social studies score earned her the equivalent of college credit (akin to AP class ranking) and she is “college ready” on two other subjects.
Averi, an athletic and effervescent young graduate who attended school in Denver and excelled at volleyball, said, “I chose to get my GED because public school was hard for me to function in. I felt like I just learned differently than most people. The GED changed my life.”
Earning a high school equivalency diploma such as the GED or the HiSet (another alternative diploma choice) is the right alternative to a traditional diploma for adults whose educations have been interrupted for various reasons. We consider it a privilege to support these adults in turning their lives toward the future as their circumstances now give them the breathing space to return to their academic lives.
We don’t view our students with negative labels like “dropout” or “at-risk.” We focus on their strengths, their intelligence, their extensive life experiences, their untapped potential, and their thirst to excel.
Public school offers students a fuller complement of programs and greater access to clubs, athletics and after-school activities, but when students arrive at the DAEC – whether at 17 or 47– their circumstances mean that traditional high school is no longer the best fit.
Our experienced instructors follow teaching standards appropriate for adult learners and curricular objectives mirror what a high school senior should know and be able to demonstrate by graduation.
DAEC has a very high GED passing rate, higher than both the state and the national averages (96 percent in 2016). These tests require students to write an analytical essay on a debatable issue of consequence, and they need to grasp academic vocabulary as well as have a command of subject content in math, science, language arts and social studies. We’d be happy to give anyone who wants to know more one of our challenging practice tests.
Our GED program assists all kinds of adults into college and post-secondary educational programs, and we value our partnerships with Durango, Bayfield and Ignacio schools. We’re also expanding our GED/HiSet and ESL programs into Mancos and Cortez this fall.
Like the narrator of Robert Frost’s famous poem, our students take the path “less traveled by” and that makes all the difference for them.
Stephanie Moran is the High School Equivalency program manager at the Durango Adult Education Center. Reach her at smoran@durangoadulted.org or (970) 385-4354.
