Transcript
Dear APWA, Salutations! If you've already received the hand-written agreement?, than you were expecting this journal entry. Years ago, Dr. Cornall West said "having a GED is the equivalent of being functionally illiterate." Although I couldn't grasp the complexity of what he meant then, now it makes perfect sense. In 2003 while awaiting trial, I passed the GED test. Unbeknownst to me then that's all I learned i.e. how to pass a test. Fast-forward to around 2010 or 2011 when I heard Dr. C. West say the aforesaid and it resonated with me. By the time, I'd been here (ADX) over a year, and was questioning how did I get here. the only thing that made sense was my intellectual deficiency. I thought simply picking up books and reading them would fix my deficiency. Beyond Urban Novel's, I couldn't seem to process the information and draw a conclusion. Years went by and in hindsight it was like "a hamster running on a wheel of stagnation." Then after a series of conversations with an acquaintance, within the last year, it was suggested to me that I get a GED book. I asked why? I was told because you keep saying "seent" instead of "saw." Lord knows, I'm prone to get in my own way. However, I managed not to this time. A couple months later and I'm a week away from completing the Reasoning Through Language Arts section of the GED book. Learn how to "Write An Extended Response," and I'll be finished. Because the primary objective was to teach me how to process fiction and non-fiction work, then for me to be able to summarize it/draw the correct conclusion; I'm going to start reading short stories of Mark Twain, while going over the entire Reasoning Through Language Arts section again to make sure I comprehend it all. Once that's done I'm going to work through the entire GED book until I'm proficient in each subject. From there, I'd like to find a Distance Learning Program that offers at a minimum Associate Degree,. Preferably in Sociology or Social Anthropology. I'm transitioning from being functionally illiterate to literate, and I can't understand how America has citizens, free or incarcerated, with literary problems(?!)...
