I am now a GED instructor-in-training at an Adult Education Center. One of the strangest phenomena? I'm actually using my degree for this job! Imagine that. A millenial. Working in their field of study. Who'dathunk it?
Skillset = Applied
A probably-not-exhaustive list
Disability services
Since 2013, I've been working in direct support for adults with developmental disabilities and/or on the autism spectrum. I've learned a lot about the minefield of ableism one must tiptoe through. Some of our students at the adult ed center are people who slipped through the cracks, perhaps for reasons of slight-to-major disabilities that went undetected.
Tutoring
I worked as a tutor at St. John's Military School for 7 years. I also have helped other community members on test prep. It's amazing all the holes one finds in people's academic ship that need to be caulked. And all signs say that's what we do in GED prep.
Teamwork
As a barbershop chorus director and member of the municipal band board, I participate in team meetings. Before being part of these organizations, I never knew that I could enjoy business meetings. When you care deeply about an organization's thrival, suddenly talking about logistics and learning monitoring becomes a joyful experience. At our adult ed center, it appears we basically have a turn-teaching mentality, and this means lots of communication and meetings.
Following guidelines
Working with folks with disabilities, one gets accustomed to filling out forms that are required by oversight boards to be done just-so. The adult ed center, similarly, answers to funding and oversight. Interestingly, I have found occasionally lacking in my fellow direct support workers skills that we teach for the GED. For example, when filling out incident reports, direct support workers are supposed to be just-the-facts-jack objective - opinion and feelings are largely irrelevant. I will probably be teaching this kind of writing to my GED students.
Memory recall
I have 19.something years of experience in the workforce. I've done cashiering, fast-food-ing, night-auditing, collegiate speech judging, vehicle delivery, leadership, and planning. Oh yeah... and athletics and sports fandom are my hobbies... and I have a master's degree in Adult Learning & Leadership. In relating to students and finding a pathway to successful instruction, I'm probably going to be mining every work experience I've ever had.
Maintain professional distance
This may prove to be the most challenging of all skills. While I will respect each individual I teach as an independent adult, I do tend to get attached to people fairly easily, especially if, y'know, they kinda need me/I can be useful to their life. Maintaining professional distance isn't easy to do when working with folks with disabilities because, in part, they tend to be so real and sincere. It's easy to be emotionally available to people who see you as a human just as you see them. My main coping mechanism for professional distance appears to be "keep moving; what's next on the agenda today?". In other words, I don't give myself time to dwell on any passing emotion from the day. There's music to play, books to read, comedic current-events videos to watch, and people to see. Just keep swimming.
Instruction
This goes without saying so much that I'm including it at the end (inverted pyramid, donchaknow). To me, instruction means three main things: 1) care for the individual, 2) seek to inspire my love of the subject matter, 3) and humble stubornness - when there's something a student needs to learn, I just keep trying different methods until something clicks for them.
Conclusion
Thus, ergo, and so, it looks like this job is going to use every professional tool and memory I've ever acquired.
Great job!
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