Kaskaskia College GED Teacher Terry Chappell (left) receives this week’s WJBD-WSIQ Teacher of the Week Award from WJBD-WSIQ General Manager Bruce Kropp.
Terry Chappel, retired Sandoval teacher and a GED teacher through the Adult Education program at Kaskaskia College for the past 18 years is this week’s WJBD-WSIQ Teacher of the Week.
Terry Chappell says moving the GED program online during COVID-19 has been a great challenge, but through lots of Zoom meetings, he’s able to keep students engaged. His students pointed to his ability to keep them on track despite issues in their lives that could still include why they dropped out of high school, family needs, or in some cases working over 40 hours a week.
“Now you are really trying to do something to better yourself so let’s go ahead and finish this program. A lot of times I just talk to them like I know you are going through a lot of problems right now, but don’t worry about that just keep going. It doesn’t make a difference how long it takes you to do these things, just take it one subject at a time. There are a lot of life skills get involved when getting your GED.”
Chappell says one of the big differences from teaching high school is the wide age range of students.
“My students can range from 17 years old to one of the oldest students I had was 72 years old and that’s a challenge to is to make sure its individualized. And that’s the good thing is you can individualize it because whether you are 72 or 17 your experiences are going to be a lot different.”
Chappell says on average it takes three months to prepare to take the GED test, but some students complete the preparation in just a couple months while others take two to three years.
The GED classes are part of the Kaskaskia College Adult Education program headed by Tommy Henegar. He praises Chappell’s ability to reach students as well as work with other GED instructors.
“He took on all of our online this fall and will do so in the spring too. Kind of launched that for us too. He is one of the veteran teachers that has been with us the longest and one of our most successful teachers. This semester because of COVID we have a lot of new instructors and Terry has taken them under his wing and shown them some of our I-Pathways, some of the things he does in math, and some of the tricks of the trade that help our students succeed quickly.”
Henegar says many of the GED students also face the additional hurdle of not having good computer skills that Chappell has helped them overcome.
If you would like to nominate a teacher of the month, you can do so by going to the Teacher of the Month link on the top of the home page and submit your entry.
