In pockets across our province adults gather. Their quest, skills, the place: your nearest Adult Learning Centre (ALC).
Every student will work at their own pace, each with a different curriculum. Providing individualized training is instrumental to it’s success.
A more eclectic mixture you could not find. Ranging in age twenty to fifty-five, it would be difficult to recognize any similarity at all. A closer look reveals some parallels and insight to the realities of ALC.
One man, an absolutely brilliant historian spends a large amount of time concentrating on math. The continuous hum of a keyboard as a middle-age man familiarizes himself with a computer. In his 50’s , a talented writer sorts through a gauntlet of study areas. A single mother of two diligently prepares for college acceptance.
Center stage, an instructor. His ability to encourage without being cumbersome is uncanny, a character trait needed if he is to provide these learners with the structure to finish this program. With every student at a different level of study, he must be consistently aware of each learner’s strengths and weaknesses. Some move through the curriculum rapidly, others more gradually.
The program coordinator oversees the daily events and will provide learners with a structure and timeline to attain their desired outcome. Both instructor and coordinator are well aware that for many they have homes, jobs, and children while attending the program. Priority is given to accommodate each learner’s personal as well as academic needs. The system is implemented in such a way that success is achievable.
Although their differences are obvious, a sense of camaraderie is apparent. This group needs no encouragement to begin the tasks at hand. All are decidedly here to achieve their goal.
If the student body is the heart of your ALC, then it’s the staff that breathes life into it. Success of its students is a measure of their success as an organization. At a time in society when bank tellers are being replaced with interact, voice mail has reinvented talking, and computers supersede postage, there are still some jobs that must be done for the people, by the people.
The remaining constant is a group of adults, young and old, with a willingness to achieve and a staff to support their efforts.
Over the past years there have been graduates from Colchester Adult Learning Association. Our alumni include individuals who have gone on to Trades and Training courses with the college, Victorian Order of Nurses and homemakers alike.
Adult Learning Centres are providing our communities with a more skilled labour force and strengthening our ability to compete in an ever evolving job market.
As individuals pass through its doors, each will be given the opportunity to enrich its community in varied ways. My name is Betty Ann Childs and I am one of the “common threads” that will invariably create a quilt that adds to Nova Scotia’s ability to thrive in today’s economy and am being furnished with the skills to do just that.