Guest Blogger - Stephanie Melick "Sheer Determination"

Author Stephanie Melick

   

  "Stories are the single most

powerful tool in a leader's toolkit"

-Howard Gardner

As an adjunct instructor for an accelerated continuing adult degree program, I often wonder who is learning more: the students or me. Every day, the media provides stories of amazing determination, designed to inspire and motivate me; and they certainly do. Yet, I have come to realize that there is an entire group of individuals whose stories are not touted, tweeted or texted. These are the adults who have decided it is time to become a college student; some for the very first time. I teach their first course: Academic Foundations (AFC), with the major objective to reacclimatize the adult student to college and academia. It is through this class that I am privileged to hear the backstories that brought about the return to school. Each individual student offers a unique saga of determination and inspiration. 

It is a story of the student, who after an unsuccessful college experience directly out of high school, in which bad choices resulted in multiple run-ins with the legal system, now appreciates the learning experience. He is so proud to say he is a 37-year-old sophomore.

It is a story of the student who is returning to school after 20 years as a single parent raising two children, juggling home, work and academics, now bringing a life-perspective born out of struggle and deprivation. Once disenfranchised, she now believes she has been given the opportunity to make a difference.

It is a story of the student who was denied higher education due to her immigration status, though she graduated 7^th in her high school class, now with a green card that allows her the opportunity to obtain her college degree. Having known bigotry and bias, she now seeks to become a role-model for those still denied access to education.

It is a story of the student who is working three jobs to support his family, having decided he needs to set the example for his five children, he is now standing out in the classroom with his intellect and leadership skills. This man fully understands the true meaning of the word “challenge.”

It is a story of the student who has experienced years of domestic violence, finally accepting that she has worth, intelligence and a voice. Now she seeks to prove not only to those who once demoralized and degraded her, but most mostly to herself, that she can succeed.

It is a story of a man who witnessed corruption on the job and reported it. He now wants to make a difference in how companies do business by learning how to implement values and integrity into the day-to-day operation and organization of Corporate America.

And it is a story of a returning veteran, who after tours in Iraq and Afghanistan is a single parent, trying to raise a two-year old while dealing with traumatic stress. She is now proving herself in the classroom, just as she did on the battle field.

Every one of these students has the desire and motivation to succeed, yet they will need support and guidance to do so. Encouragement may come from family and friends; yet the learning institution and instructors, such as me, also have an obligation to the adult student. I believe that my role as an AFC instructor is to provide the adult students with not only the academic benchmarks and skill-sets needed to make the grade, but also with a set of values that will be applicable in every aspect of life.

These skills and values will be learned through clearly stated parameters and transparency of school policies set forth in my syllabus. There needs to be accessibility not only to the learning but also to me, in a non-judgmental and trustworthy approach, while I patiently providing meaningfully relevant lessons and topics for discussion. The adult student also needs my empathy which enables me to understand without condescension. And finally, institutions of higher learning and I need to provide the adult student with the guidance to navigate through the all-important, yet exasperating, minutiae. This last has caused many students to thrown in the towel at their first attempt in college. I believe that if I can implement this people-oriented humanistic approach that student will succeed in obtaining their dreams.

But how do these core values translate into the classroom lesson? Well, many of my students still aren’t sure what they “want to be when they grow up.” They are struggling to find work in an economy that suddenly will fill a menial position with a PhD. Or my students just have a gut feeling that there has to be something more meaningful in their 9-5 existence. Therefore, the former guidance counselor in me uses a variety of self-assessments, inventories and surveys selected to help students identify strength and weaknesses; interests and motivators. The results enable students to create a personality and skill-set profile; a picture of who they are both in and out of the classroom. One of my students dubbed them the “Cosmo quiz of the week,” but at the end of the course confessed that if he had known himself this well 20 years ago he probably would have made it through his first attempt at college. 

We also compare and contrast the level on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to roles one takes on in a groups ~ personal, professional and academic. This particular lesson focuses on why we may not demonstrate leadership qualities in a business setting because we are fearful of rejection or possibly do not feel safe in the job. This leads to a discussion regarding how one’s metacognitive awareness and regulation can determine job satisfaction. In fact, after every assessment we then examine the results in terms the student’s current personal and professional life. 

But it is not all “fun and games.” The assessments are interwoven with the benchmark skills necessary to continue on in the Associate’s or Bachelor’s degree programs; most importantly focusing on comprehension, critical thinking and writing skills. All this leads to a Career Analysis Research paper, that not only helps the student learn more about his or her dream job, but refreshes and/or introduces the student to information literacy, data base research and a formal research paper. While these academic skills can baffle and frustrate my students, the question that inevitably stymies them is: “Where do you see yourself in five or ten years?” This is not surprising, considering the average age of my continuing education students is 35-40 years old.

Two specific stories come to mind: The first is about one of my students who stated that her dream was to become a CEO of a hospital. Currently working as an office manager in a doctor’s office, she believed this was a natural progression. She was able to identify the business courses necessary to achieve a BA and eventually an MBA. Academic or peer review articles on the qualifications and responsibilities of a hospital CEO were relatively easy to find in our library databases. She even had two people that she could interview and/or shadow. After setting up her paper, addressing all the bullets of the assignment, she interviewed a CEO. Then she called me in a panic.

In doing all the research and interviews, even shadowing the CEO one afternoon, she realized that she did not have the personality traits for the job. How did she know this? She compared the results of all the inventories and surveys she had completed during AFC and realized that her results were antithetical to the traits needed to run a hospital. For example: There is quite a bit of administrative paper work required and that wasn’t even a blip on her career-interest survey results. She also realized that she needed strong leadership skills and her results from the team work inventory indicated that she was much stronger in compromising. The only assessment that would have supported this future career choice was the results from her learning style survey, which indicated she is a physical reflective learner; both learning styles that would be needed when one are in charge of an entire hospital.

Of course her panic was that the submission date was less than three days away! What should she do now?

My advice: Finish the paper explaining what she discovered and how this assignment saved her years of course work that she would not benefit from. What a wonderful example of the process of learning.

And as an endnote: After realizing that she was more interested in the qualitative rather than quantitative aspects of a business, she changed her major.  She is now part of the Bachelors of Sociology: Organizational Studies rather than the Bachelors of Science Business Administration program!

Another one of my students was currently working in the high paying, high stress job of sales. The 10-hour days were really wearing on him; however with a growing family he could not walk away from the steady paycheck. A former Marine, he was used to hard work and long days; but he was uninspired and bored.

He could not answer the question: Where do you want to be in five or ten years? He just knew it wasn’t in his current job.

The career-interest survey indicated he would make a good crossing-guard! Seriously, that was his top “career.” We all had a good laugh at that; but the reality was that there was validity in those results. His learning style was a physical social learner. His team work skills were strong in leadership and evaluation. Yet he was the first to acknowledge that the results from the organization-skills assessment were spot on: he lacked organizational and time management skills. Crossing guard was looking more and more viable!

In the end, it was his love of food that won out. After interviewing a couple of friends who owned their own restaurants, he realized that the day-to-day minutiae of a restaurant were exactly what he needed to keep his interest; keep him moving while allowing him to kibitz with people. He was also wise enough to realize that he would need a partner who possesses the organizational skills that he lacks. No worries: he would be the host, the face the restaurant and his partner could be the brains. He knows just the right person for the job…

Stories like these are the reason I teach. Yes, my role as the instructor is to encourage and enable efficacy in the academic world. But I also urge my students to embrace the learning ~ not the grade. In every course my main objective is to embolden my students to focus on their strengths and to have the courage to ask for help, which is often extremely intimidating for an adult learner. So as an adjunct in an accelerated adult program, I must embrace the core values that foster endurance and resiliency; essentially, I must develop and earn my students’ trust. I can present the activities and be the cheerleader, but it is the student’s desires and belief in the learning that make the difference. 

Out of sheer determination, these adult students walk into classrooms every day anxious at the impending challenges, yet eager to absorb and share the learning. They may not be the current sound bite who gets their 15 minutes of fame, but they are superstars in the eyes of their families, friends and especially me. As a wise man once suggested to me, anything I can do as a teacher “to nurture and strengthen this determination will pay wonderful dividends, helping students complete their dreams for a better life.”

Stephanie A. Melick, MA, is a Program Advisor and also an adjunct instructor for Centenary College's School of Professional Studies.  This article will be published as part of an anthology titled "Moments of Clarity:  Anthology of Stories from Faculty Who Teach for Success" (John H. Shrawder, Editor).