At Ease - Wisconsin National Guard Department of Military Affairs

LEARNING FORLIFE
Technical colleges, Guard team up for life-changing ged program
By Todd Finkelmeyer
The Capital Times
(Reprinted with permission)
Steven Nelson admits he was on the fast track to nowhere.
So the 23-year-old former high school dropout finally
decided it was time to peel himself off his mother’s couch and
attempt to alter the course of his life.
“I can pretty much say there was a moment, an epiphany,
for me,” said Nelson, who dropped out of high school five
years ago because he got tired of the two-hour bus ride -- each
way -- to attend the Milwaukee School of Entrepreneurship.
“I was sitting at my mother’s house, and I saw an Army
commercial, and my brother starts going off about, ‘I can’t see
anybody doing that. That just seems so stupid to me.’
“And I was like, ‘You know what, if I don’t do something
like that I’m probably going to end up 10 years from
now sitting on my mother’s couch and looking at Army
commercials. So it was like, ‘Let’s do this.’ “
While joining the Wisconsin Army National Guard late this
summer was the first step toward starting a new life for Nelson,
he credits “Learning for Life” -- an intense two-week GED
preparation and career advising project run by both the Guard
and staff at Madison Area Technical College -- for giving him
an exciting new outlook on his future.
“I guess what’s taken me by surprise is, I didn’t know until we
were finished with the first group of students in June that this project
was going to be a life-changing event for some people,” said Jane
Griswold, MATC’s basic skills training liaison who worked with
the Wisconsin National Guard to implement the Learning for Life
program. “These are individuals without high school diplomas
who had experienced some measure of failure in various ways in
their life. And completing this program is a license to feel like
they can be productive and successful for the rest of their lives.”
In order to complete basic training and become active
with the National Guard, a person either needs a high school
diploma or must pass the General Educational Development
(GED) tests that certify that a person has high-school-level
academic skills.
To help high school dropouts earn their GEDs, the
Wisconsin National Guard teamed with both MATC and
Milwaukee Area Technical College to offer an intense, twoweek
course. The first such program was held last March in
Milwaukee, while MATC hosted the program in June and again
Oct. 13-24. In June, each of the 24 people who took the class
passed all five of their tests -- in math, science, reading, writing
and social studies -- to earn their GED. It’s too soon to know
what percentage of those who finished the class last week will
earn their GED, but all those interviewed for this story said
they believed they would.
“I’ll admit that getting back in the habit of learning again
was tough,” said Derek Hensel, a native of Burlington and a
high school dropout who recently completed the program at
MATC. “I know it was hard for me to roll out of bed at 5 in the
morning and learn for eight straight hours. But this class was a
great push in the right direction. It’s learning for life.”
To a person, those interviewed for this article had no
problem joining the National Guard at a time when the U.S.
and its troops are involved in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Basically, all the benefits of joining the Guard outweigh
the cons,” said Nelson. “They paid me to get my GED. They’ll
pay for me to go to college. I get dental and health coverage.
“I mean, you can’t even work at McDonald’s these days
without a GED. So for me, this is all worth it.”
A month prior to the two-week program, the National
Guard members who hope to earn their GEDs are tested to
evaluate strengths and weaknesses in the classroom. Instructors
then develop a curriculum based on those test results and place
the students in groups of five or six when they arrive at MATC.
Part-time Adult Basic Education instructor Lindsey Snyder, right,
teaches student Lisa Lomasney how to solve word problems in algebra.
Photo by Master Sgt. Paul Gorman
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