One Man's Journey Through the School of Hard Knocks

It’s been 42 years since I left school. I wanted to look into getting some kind of schooling. I had only learned to e mail and had no skills on the computer. I had physically demanding jobs for 40 years and was now left on a pension.

I’d only had around a grade 6 education in England with 4 years of trade school. I wasn’t brought up here in Canada; however, thankfully I had a trade from England. I had also gone back to school and got another trade during my 34 years working here in Canada and those two trades were, my bread and butter for many years. I’d only worked physically in my life however, I felt like there must be something else I can do to get going into some kind of other employment which isn’t as physically demanding.

I plucked up enough courage one day and drove to the library and talked to a young lady down there and she said that I should go talk to someone at the Yellowhead Region Education Consortium (YREC).

I went to the front desk and mumbled a few words to the secretary about seeing someone about doing some schooling, she politely asked me to take a seat and she said that she would introduce me to one of the teachers.

This is where I first saw and met my teacher Phil. Who was a very positive and encouraging fellow. I briefly told him my story and that I had no idea where to start. I blabbed on to him about not having too much of an education, and that I have two trades, I worked hard all my life but was interested in doing something different.

After taking a short test to see what educational level I was at, we talked about things in general and came up with the idea that I would start taking a computer course on the 14th of September, 2007.

September came around, I got up to go to school and drove down to the consortium. When I got there I just couldn’t go in. I was very nervous about attending my first day. I flashed back to the teachers and kids that I had gone to school with in England (which was not a good experience).

So I drove back home and went through a little trip down memory lane, to really think about it all. I decided that if I pass my course, fine and if not that was fine too, at least I’d have tried.

I returned back to the school at around 11:30 a.m. where I bumped into my teacher Phil and I explained to him what happened. He simply said that he understood and that he had seen students get cold feet before.

He encouraged me to go and meet the other students.

I plodded along very slowly for the first couple of weeks of the course. I was introduced to Windows XP and I soon started to learn the basic skills in file management, basic hardware and software operations.

I learned very fast how to use file and save my work every two minutes, I only lost my work once!

As the course progressed we were introduced to Word Processing, how to use all the tool bars, Excel, typing and how to use a digital camera.

Learning has not always been easy for me. My mother was an alcoholic and continued drinking while she was pregnant with me, because of this I was diagnosed with a learning disability. To make up for that I stayed late everyday in the computer room when it was available to make sure my assignments were completed on time. I have to say that my adult classmates were a big encouragement, they were always there to help me when they could.

Aside from staying late, I would also arrive early every morning, with a whole bunch of questions for my teachers, Donna and Phil. They took the time to show me many additional things about servers, the Internet and took the time to show me the main computer room where everything is stored.

I would like to say to sum up everything, that if you or anyone you know has thought about advancing your education or are looking for a better career opportunity, I would encourage you to check out what YREC has to offer. The teachers, staff and everyone were very helpful, courteous and friendly.

I’d like to pursue getting more education and I am currently thinking about taking an English course down the road.

By the way, with a lot of hard work, I passed the computer course with 100 per cent!

I owe much of my two teachers, Phil and Donna as well as my classmates. It’s never too late to go back to school.

Submitted by Alan Sibbons, Hinton resident and lifelong student.

Recovering addict tells the tale of her success.....