A Bridge over Academic Troubles

Next Friday at midnight ends a first half-of-a-semester class for fifteen fledgling Medical Assistant students. Their next seven-week class, Health Care Customer Service, begins the following morning at 8 a.m.. That gives them, I reminded them in class yesterday, a whole eight-hours to kick back and take it easy until we meet again.

They smiled, but did not complain.

This group of students, a mix of ELL and Adult Basic Education students, are enrolled in a Career Pathways Bridge program. The Bridge is a class that offers low-level students supplemental instruction concurrent with a real-live program course. While I don't teach the content of the class, I do team teach with a state-certified Medical Assistant instructor who does do content. My job is to stay out of her way, assist when I can, and help Bridge students work on basic skills such as reading, writing, computer fundamentals, study skills and motivation. In some courses, I even teach a little math.

Low level students and English language learners struggle in a traditional classroom because they have not had the academic background of traditional college-bound students. So Bridge planners, curriculum writers, and faculty -- like me-- try to adjust the traditional schedule and give the students little extra help -- like me -- to give them the chance to be successful. Most of the time, that is all they need. My college has successfully implemented this pathway strategy in nine separate programs and dozens of courses in business, trades and health sciences. The curriculum is not changed in these courses. That is an important point. There is no difference in course competencies between a Bridge Health Care Customer Service class and traditional Health Care Customer Service class; we just help out a bit.

Fortunately, motivation is usually not a problem for Bridge students. They know that hard work and overcoming academic and personal obstacles are the pathway toward success. Their hunger for education is inspirational and reminds me of a story reported by NY Times columnist, David Brooks, some years back about a speech given by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio at the Jack Kemp Foundation's Leadership Award dinner.

First a little background: Sen. Rubio's parents came from Cuba in 1956 and worked their way up to a middle class life: his mother as a maid, cashier and retail clerk; and his father as a convention banquet bartender. The night of 2012 Kemp speech, the service staff, remembering those stories, gave Sen. Rubio an honorary hotel name tag which said, "Rubio, Banquet Bartender."

Success and dreams, Sen. Rubio later told the dinner crowd while applauding the work of the service staff, "starts with our people: in the kitchens of our hotels, in the landscaping crews that work in our neighborhoods, in the late-night janitorial shifts that clean our offices. There you will find the dreams American was based on. There you will find the promise of tomorrow. Their journey is our nation's destiny. And if they can give their children what our parents gave us, the 21st-century America will be the single greatest nation that man has ever know."

For my Bridge students, their success and dreams articulated by Rubio, continues at 8 a.m. next Saturday morning. I expect to see them there early, eager and ready to work hard.