NALC- 1 and 2

Tonight was my first night at the NALC. I feel like going into it tonight I had many presuppositions about what my time would be like there and it was literally none of those things. I think since it has been so long into the semester before I have had a chance to go and have heard from other students about their experiences, I built up in my mind how it was already going to go.

My first person, lets just call him Mr.C, was a 48 year old man. It was actually his first experience as a student and he was excited just to have gotten a spot in the program. He came ready and eager to learn. I could tell at first that was not sure if he was allowed to talk to me about things outside of learning the information buy when I opened up to him about how I was student at Belmont, he really opened up about his life and his struggles. He spent the first fifteen minutes talk about how he worked in Nasvhille and his wife homeschool their 14 year old daughter. He was encouraged to finally learn to read since his daughter is surpassing him in his knowledge. It was a really moving story. We get started on talking about the difference between short and long sounding vowels. At first, when I found out that is what I was doing, I got nervous because I had a moment when I couldn't remember what a short or long vowel was- but I remembered and we got through it. It was really rewarding to see him on his first experience and his commitment to want to learn.

After Mr. C left, I quickly transitioned into my next student. Lets call him, Mr. A. He was significantly different in his ability to read. He actually ran through the stories in the advanced book very quickly. He said that his main problem is not the reading but actually understanding what he is reading. He explained that he is trying to get his GED for the second time and it has taken him 24 months already of GED classes. He explained that he grew up in foster care and dropped out of school when he was just 17, got a paying job and expected that he would never regret it. Now that the place he worked at all his life has closed, he has had trouble find job without an education. It was eye opening to me and really made me even more thankful and grateful for my education in life. Mr. A has been coming for about 6 weeks and he is about half way through the starting program at NALC. Im really hoping that I am able meet with him again. He was a really hard worker and I really want him to succeed.