 Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 1:18 pm Post subject: Rulpert Heine beats the odds |
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Rulpert Heine was feeling lonely at the start of last year’s GED classes at the College of the Marshall Islands. An elementary school dropout, he was 41 years old — old enough to be the father of most of the dozens of younger Marshallese enrolled in the high school equivalency program. But then he reminded himself why he was sitting in that class. “Before I applied to GED, I told the Director (Tone Herkinos) I was there for two reasons,” Heine told the Journal following his graduation from GED last week."
I hadn’t been in school for 28 years and I wanted to do something for myself. I also wanted to open the eyes of older Marshallese who are too shy to go back to school with young babies in their class.” With those words, Heine signed up for GED in mid-2007. Heine was a classic “high-risk” student. He’d dropped out of sixth grade while at SDA School in Delap, and twice had signed up for but then dropped out of GED. Heine worked as a taxi driver and in construction for years — “I was working hard with a small salary because I hadn’t graduated from school” — before landing a job with WorldTeach. Watching the volunteer teachers and the travel, work and school opportunities open to them got Heine to thinking about what he was doing with his own life. “It gave me the idea to try again,” he said. Aside from helping himself, he said he wanted to encourage other older Marshallese to go back to school.
MIJ Online |
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