This collection, written by immigrant students enrolled in GED classes at the El Paso Community College/Community Education Program, represents an effort to implement an innovative pedagogical approach. In traditional GED programs students engage a GED textbook and attempt master skills to respond correctly to questions and problems presented in the text. Students have no control over their own learning and their personal knowledge and experiences have little value. Often, students find traditional learning uninteresting, unrelated to their own experiences and inapplicable to real life. Some persist, knowing the value of a GED certificate. Others become bored, frustrated, and drop out.
Our pedagogical approach is grounded in the idea that GED instruction requires good reading and writing skills. However, many of our students have had little exposure to reading and writing. So, developing these skills, a challenge in itself, becomes more challenging when the students are uninterested in the subject and have little familiarity with it. However, if students can build their reading and writing skills by documenting and reading their own experiences, they will be familiar with the knowledge and they will relate to it. Moreover, they will feel validated if their knowledge and experiences are documented for posterity. Once they build their reading and writing skills, they will be able to apply these skills to new knowledge and new academic and real life problems.
This pedagogical approach has extensive theoretical support. However, there aren’t many programs implementing such an approach. Yet, our efforts are demonstrating that such an approach works. The students are improving their reading and writing skills. Not only that, but the students have become published authors and leaders among their family members and peers. Their self esteem has grown exponentially and so has their desire to read, write, share their knowledge and acquire new knowledge.

Andres Muro