Resilient spirit propels instructor to GED award

Published 4:33 pm Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Dulcie Hays knows what it’s like to have no one believe in you.

Growing up in Irrigon in a poor family, she said teachers and classmates never expected her to succeed.

Now the 2018 Oregon GED Educator of the Year, Hays draws on her own background as she helps inmates work toward their General Education Development certificates.

“I don’t give up on people who society has already given up on,” she said. “I get that.”

Hays won the statewide award after a 15-year career with BMCC, 13 of which she’s spent working as a teacher at Two Rivers Correctional Institution. She teaches inmates, who are working toward their GED degrees, covering several subjects and every skill level. She also teaches a few times a week at the BMCC Hermiston campus, working with other GED students.

Hays still thinks about the experiences that shaped her early education. Capable and ready to learn, she was hampered by other barriers.

“We were the poorest, whitest trash family in Irrigon,” she said. “People never let me forget who my brothers were, who my cousins were. So I hated school. Freshman year, I missed so much school they took me off the roster.”

But something clicked for Hays when, on a day she was suspended from school, her mom took her along to one of her classes at BMCC.

“It was the first time I’d really seen her motivated,” Hays said, recalling that sitting in the class inspired her as well. “They just really wanted to help people.”

After attending BMCC and Eastern Oregon University, she returned to Irrigon, and applied for a job opening as an assessment and training specialist at BMCC. The job included training teachers, tutoring students for the GED, and administering tests.

In 2005, a teacher left the program, and others encouraged her to apply. Although she didn’t have a master’s degree, Hays created a lesson plan, and got the job — her current role.

Working with a group of about 12 students at a time, Hays teaches at TRCI five days a week, three classes a day.

She will have inmates, who have already passed the course, serve as tutors as they cover four subjects.

“We’re teaching science, social studies, reading and math all at the same time,” she said.

Because students are all coming in with different levels of skill and experience, they often have to individualize the lessons.

“I’m constantly looking for patterns, and having multiple objectives for every lesson, so everyone is getting something out of it,” she said.

Along with writing grants and advocating for corrections-specific curriculum, much of Hays’ time goes into understanding how individual students learn.

“I ask, ‘What’s something you know well? How would you teach that to somebody?’” Hays said. “There’s nothing you can’t learn. More than the curriculum itself, I’ve had to adapt the approach.”

Hays said about 30 percent of inmates statewide come in without a GED certificate. Getting one while incarcerated is often a springboard to further education.

Tammy Krawczyk, director of college prep at BMCC, said six students have completed their GED certificate since July. That number does not include the prison, she said.

But she said overall, BMCC has seen an increase in the number of students completing GED certificates, and those transferring into college courses.

Hays said she has seen a connection between the students who complete the GED program and succeed in school, and success once they leave TRCI.

“I’ve seen people out in town who were in our program,” she said. “We’ve gotten postcards, phone calls from people wanting letters of recommendation, which we don’t give. Or they just want to say thank you.”

She said increasingly, there are programs to move former inmates back into the workforce, and highlighted the skills they develop if they apply themselves while in prison.

Still, it’s a challenge for many students to get there. Hays said it’s not uncommon for her students to have learning disabilities, memory issues because of medications they’re taking, or mental issues as a result of head injuries or drug abuse.

Hays said it is rare a student fails the program for any reason other than bad behavior.

“I try to find out what motivates someone,” she said. “Say, this is your opportunity to learn and advance what you have. I’m not keeping someone in there who will not work, not progress toward a goal.”

Getting a GED certificate can pay dividends, even inside TRCI. There are some jobs, such as laundry and the physical plant, for which inmates must have passed the program in order to work.

“It seems like there are a lot of boxes to check,” Hays said. “But the biggest box is getting people to think, getting them to believe that their education matters.”

Hays said she hopes students will realize the value of an education, regardless of what their future holds. She recalled a student of hers who is doing life in prison without parole.

“He’s working on his master’s,” she said. “We can’t always control the circumstances of where we are, but can certainly work toward making that place better.”