A serious, mild-mannered fifteen-year-old, Kevin had been in and out of public schools, in for a few months, out for a few, in elementary school. After third grade, his days in classrooms grew less frequent. Beyond fourth grade, he was home schooled.
When I met him in the clinic, he would have been in high school under current-traditional circumstances. He tried high school briefly, but it didn’t work out for him. He was sensitive, fragile; he described a range of experiences with bullies, academic and otherwise. Most of what he knew of high school was from movies.
I remember Kevin most for his gentle spirit, his serenity, and his dignity. He called me “Mr. Underwood” or “sir.” He read fluently and effectively; his score on an old style achievement test for reading, the Nelson-Denny1, pegged him solidly in the high school range. He was very pleased.
Kevin wanted to go to a community college when he felt ready. He was confident in his reading ability, but he had limited experience with written composition, and he wanted to develop his math skills, which were in truth weak. He struggled with fractions, ratios, proportions, decimals, and percentages.
I took a field trip to the student book store at Napa Valley Community College one morning to see what materials I might find for Kevin. I found shelves of books and bindings in the area reserved for remedial courses offered by the English Department and bought two copies of a text by Paul Kinsella heavily used in the remedial writing course sequence2. I didn’t know that I would be teaching within that course sequence within a year.
I also found a section for the Department of Mathematics with a parallel sequence of remedial courses. But the textbook that caught my eye was indexed for the most basic credit-bearing math course, the gatekeeper course required for graduation from most certificate programs. It included useful explanatory material at the beginning of lessons and posed problems with a real-world flair; answers to the odd numbered problems with comment on common errors added great value. I would not have a teacher’s manual.
Kevin and I were diligently working our way through these materials when I decided to close the clinic. I had scheduled myself to the brim. I’d tried to find local teachers to tutor in the evening to relieve some pressure, but I didn’t have the luxury of training someone as Kurt did. I couldn’t find a teacher to walk in ready for work on day one.
Plus I’d been intrigued by Napa College. I’d learned that the campus hired part-time instructors and paid a decent hourly rate. I’d talked with the instructor who was in charge of remedial programs in the English Department. I’d also begun to submit query letters to editors of popular periodicals like Weight Watchers, Ford Times, and Ultra Sport—I’d begun training to run marathons. The Writer’s Market occupied my attention. I was getting contracts to write articles on health and fitness (a topic for later).
I submitted my transcript from Illinois State University to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing and received an Instructor Credential qualifying me to teach in the CCCC system3. I decided to apply for a part-time position and found a warm reception.
So I announced a clinic closing date in a final ad in the Napa paper and stopped accepting students. Kevin understood my decision, but his disappointment was palpable. Working out of a small storage area I’d converted to an office, I continued to work with Kevin for several weeks, working to increase his confidence in math. We parted ways, but I’ve been sending him positive energy over the years.
Kevin was intent on passing the GED and starting a new adventure at a community college. I, too, was on the threshold of a long slow dance on the bridge between K-12 for the great unwashed and the university, a bridge I myself had crossed in 1971 when I got a high school diploma and began courses at Illinois Valley Community College with as much enthusiasm as if I were beginning Harvard.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson%E2%80%93Denny_Reading_Test
https://books.google.com/books?id=mkVlj2AhxmgC&dq=editions:VXQHHsRAx1gC
https://www.cccco.edu/