Center offers learning opportunities
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The Minot Adult Learning Center is a learning facility that serves “a lot of different capacities,” according to Director Marcy Beck. This fall, 91 students registered for full- or part-time learning.
Beck said the school offers multiple programs relating to work readiness and education for applicants 16 years of age or older.
Some of the services the center offers are preparations for General Equivalency Degree (GED) testing, English language classes and a workmen's compensation class which focuses on academic goals for injured workers. It also offers academic review and career preparations.
The Learning Center is grant-funded through state and federal funding.
Sept. 14-18, the school celebrated adult education and family literacy week, a week recognized in a proclamation by North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong.
Sam Kautzmann, a fourth year GED teacher at the Minot Adult Learning Center, expressed that he loves what the learning center does and loves the way that the staff "give back to the community." He explained the center not only helps with the education of participating students, but it aids in the language skills, jobs and lives of students. He said that he loves teaching there and enjoys the opportunity to teach such a variety of people.
He also said the pacing at the school is based on the needs of each individual student, and the smaller classrooms and flexibility allow for the development of healthy teacher-student relationships. He said the students he teaches and the coworkers he teaches with mean a lot to him. Kautzmann also said the service to the community is great, and they get the chance to help so many people grow in their learning.
Nadine Nelson, an English language instructor with the Minot Adult Learning Center for nine years, had always wanted to teach and later discovered she preferred working with adults, making the adult learning center the perfect place for her to work. She explained she loves giving students a safe and judgment-free zone to learn and ask and a place where there are no stupid questions.
She also said working at the learning center has opened her eyes to other cultures and the differences between people in the United States. She believes the learning center is important for helping students assimilate into the U.S. culture and society.
Nelson called the learning center a special "little world" that not many people know about, and a place that has a greater impact on many of its students than traditional schooling because of the flexibility of the programs.
Registrations happen four times a year.