In my early days of teaching GED, I was reluctant to set aside the ubiquitous GED preparation texts. Of course, for GED students, the prep and practices afforded by the texts is very important. The students often complain if we bring in other kinds of material. But I remember well one class early in my GED teaching career that taught me how "escaping the GED text" can be possible, and in fact turn the "test prep" drudgery into a real learning adventure.

I was an instructor with a specially funded women's program in Providence, Rhode Island in 1981 at the then-flourishing adult vocational institution, Rhode Island Opportunities Industrial Council. (OIC ).The stated mission of our program was to support women in gaining occupational skills that would enable them to move beyond the public welfare system to "living wage" employment. For most, this meant basic skills education, including preparation for the GED test battery.

My class included 25 or so eager, restless, and impatient young women. Despite my best efforts to get them interested in learning, their only interest seemed to be plowing through the books and practice tests. A constant comment, however, went something like this: "Why do I have to read this old stuff anyway?" When am I ever gonna use algebra or biology? Why do I have to learn this grammar stuff- nobody talks like that anyway!'

I was cajoling the class through the lessons when I hit the social studies prep text: finally some reading that I could connect in some ways to the lives of my learners. One lesson focused on the concept of family and provided an example of a traditional family tree. I was only too aware that my class included many women with nontraditional families. After we read the selection one student stated loudly: My family don't look like any of this — I have a whole different kind of tree!

Suddenly the whole class was commenting: Yeah, mine too — I call people family who ain't even blood, but they're more family then some of my blood kin!

I was thrilled: finally, a topic that excited the class. How could I hold on to it?

Okay, I said to the class, You're always saying that the GED stuff doesn't have anything to do with your lives. Here's a chance to look at a topic in the book, but do a project that will focus on what is true for you.

I made each student a poster board with an outline of a big tree on it. To identify the concept of a family tree, including the levels and lines that identify how people are related through time, we looked at the illustration in the book related through time. We also read the definitions of family in the dictionary.

Deep and Wide
"I can't go deep, but I can go wide," one of my students stated. She explained: she couldn't go very far back in time with her tree, but she could diagram all kinds of relationships-blood and not blood.

At first, the posters were simply names on charts and diagrams. Then one student brought in pictures, and the project exploded. The posters blossomed with maps, photos, even cloth and buttons. My role became finding other resources for reading and discussion. I found a variety of short selections (magazines, children's books, etc.) that provided examples of 'non traditional' families. For example, we read obituaries and wedding announcements to trace connections in peoples' lives.

We also connected the "family" members on various posters to places and times: who has someone on their tree who was alive in 1964? What happened that year? (Civil Rights Act, for example). Every time we identified a year, I tried to find some historical events that happened during the time period, and copied a short reading for the class. We read about elections, about weather catastrophes, about music fads and musicians, about sports events. (This project would be much easier today with Google!)

We talked about personal and public history, about who gets to say what history is. We talked about how in earlier times, history was passed down by word of mouth. More than one student talked about how Great Aunt so and so is our family history teller-we have to listen every holiday to those old stories.

This revelation gave rise to the final stage of the project. Through family discussion, the women in the class talked about the strong role of women in their families. I asked each to interview a strong woman family member (blood or not) and write the interview down. (We practiced interview skills and note taking as well.) We published these writings in a family tree newsletter, and completed the project with an open house for family members complete with baked goods identified as family specialties.

I didn't abandon the GED during the project: we had four two-hour classes a week, and we devoted one hour (on two of the days) to the project. I found that once we got into it, students wanted to get through the GED prep material to work on the project. They told me : This makes me want to come to school'. I also made an effort to connect other GED topics to the concept of family and family history, including biology (genetics) and even mathematics (for example, looking at the ratio of male to female children , or the percentage of family members living beyond 65).

With every GED class after that I attempted to develop an active GED learning project related directly to lives and interests of the students. I learned how to listen to my learners, and I found I could use GED topics as a jumping off place if I paid careful attention to students' comments and responses. In GED preparation, the "text for the test" was a must, as it is now- but moving beyond the text enabled the learners to celebrate what they knew as well as to gain and practice new skills, insight and knowledge.

Sally Gabb is the coordinator of SABES Southeast. She can be reached at sgabb@bristol.mass.edu