Last Monday, the 26-year-old mother of three finished the last of five exams to earn her General Education Development certificate.
“Being a stay-at-home mom, I thought I should do something, and it's a way to feel better about myself,” Zavarelli said. “Now when it comes time to help my kids with their homework - when they're doing the harder math - I can help them.”
She's also found new interest in how government and the judicial system work. Social studies was something else left behind in high school. Returning to it as an adult has added a new understanding of current events, she said.
The Dickinson Lifelong Learning Center holds two ceremonies a year to honor once-again students like Zavarelli. The winter one is traditionally just before Christmas, although it enfolds everyone who passed the seven-and-a-half hours of testing between July and mid-December.
Nationwide, roughly one of every six people with a high school education got it via the GED route, according to Renee Bentham, Dickinson's Adult Basic and Literacy Education chairwoman. In Missoula County, the U.S. Census estimates nearly 9 percent of the population 25 and older has less than a 12th-grade education. As entry-level qualifications for living-wage jobs get stiffer, those without such basic certification fall farther behind.
Nineteen-year-old GED recipient Sarah Washington was caught in that bind. At Tuesday's graduation ceremony, she said school never motivated her because she had no idea what she wanted to do. She left Alaska for a job offer in Montana that promised a new truck, a good home and good money. None of that panned out, and she wound up working at Denny's Restaurant.
“I'd been serving tables for four years,” Washington said. “I started to see people come and go, and I started thinking of the picture of this old lady with the cigarette hanging out of her mouth saying ‘Whaddya want?' I didn't want to become that waitress.”
She started drawing “spider charts” that connect ambitions to qualifications, mentors and needs. She said watching science channels on TV helped her build a goal around her love of seashores. Washington's vision now focuses on water. Maybe as a boat captain. Maybe as a marine biologist.
“I plan on buying a boat before I buy a house,” Washington said. To celebrate her certificate, she got a tattoo of tropical flowers and a koi fish across much of her back.
Just as they once didn't fit into high school, GED students don't match one another in the reasons they return for their diplomas. The general categories include teens who've dropped out of high school but want to get back on track, and adults who've been out of school several years. Many have suddenly lost good-paying jobs and discover they need to retrain for new work. For example, layoffs at the Stimson Lumber Co. sent a small surge of workers to Dickinson who couldn't use federal college funds without first producing a GED.
David Stickney struggled to get through fifth grade before his family decided to home-school him. The 19-year-old struggles with short-term memory loss brought on by a traumatic birth. Thanks to a recent school policy change, he was able to enroll at Hellgate High School for his junior and senior years to participate in music programs - an area where his brain excels. But he lacked the credits to earn a traditional high school diploma.
Math in a classroom setting was extremely difficult, according to Stickney's mother, Peggy. David needed a lot of one-on-one time with a teacher to absorb new concepts, and a teacher with a class of 25 doesn't have that kind of time.
“In the school system, they teach to the class,” Stickney said. “In the GED program, they teach to me.”
Stickney now hopes to direct his musical talents behind the control board of a recording studio, or some related field. School continues to be a challenge, but the success of finishing his GED had smoothed some of the rough edges.
Dickinson math instructor Mike McCarthy was himself a high school dropout. The closure of the smelters in Anaconda pushed him to get a GED and go to the University of Montana, where he majored in his least favorite subject: Math.
“Teaching math is always hard because most people don't want to sit down and focus on something that hard,” McCarthy said. “It's all detail work.”
Getting some adult distance from the social fringes of high school helps many students, McCarthy said. He also has the freedom to be a sort of teaching Swiss Army knife, adapting his instructions to the learning style of each person.
GED “classes” bear little resemblance to mainstream lessons. There are no lectures. Little student-to-student interaction. Anyone can start at any time, and work at any pace. Zavarelli recovered her missing three years of school in about three months, attending classes almost daily. Ralph Hult carved two hours of course time a week into his full-time logging job, not counting the commute from Potomac to Missoula. It took him more than a year to finish.
“I guess it was just unfinished business,” Hult said of his decision to earn a GED. “It was the only thing I ever started that I didn't finish. When I turned 17, I dropped out of high school and joined the Navy the next day.”
That was 32 years ago. Now 53 and a career logger, Hult said picking up the high school diploma had gone out of sight, out of mind. But after three children and three decades in the woods, he was looking for a new chapter in life.
“I'm ready to retire from what I'm doing - it's a tough line of work,” Hult said. “And if you want any federal or state job, they won't hire you unless you've got a diploma or GED.”
Unlike most students, Hult pounced on the math portion of the studies. Even though that was the subject that drove him out of high school, he found working with numbers easier than he remembered. What took time was the writing skills, and some computer expertise.
Historically, it was for people like Hult that the General Education Development (not diploma) program began. Bentham said the effort got started near the end of World War II, as a way to help young soldiers reconnect their interrupted educations. Both because of their age and war experience, authorities felt it was inappropriate to simply return them to high school.
Today, the Missoula Adult Basic Education program works with about 550 students a year. Many are in the GED classes, and 40 earned that certificate in the last half of 2007. Others take college preparation classes to ease the move into higher education courseloads. Some are learning English as a second language, and others are taking parenting classes.
“Lots of the people we work with have not had a positive experience with education,” Bentham said. “Just getting in our doors is an enormous first step.”
But once inside, instruction is free for as long as the student can attend. The only charge is a $61 fee for the five tests. Local scholarships and donations are hunted up for those who can't afford that hurdle.
It's a small investment for a big payoff. The Census figures the difference in earnings for someone without a GED to someone who passed high school or the equivalent is $13,204 a year.
Reporter Rob Chaney can be reached at 523-5382 or at rchaney@missoulian.com
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)