It was a major culture shock since I had only attended school with children of educated parents. There were students in my new school who spent the entire year trying to learn to add - no kidding.

We were an experimental project to learn how to teach to all types of learners - without computers. I was amazed at the different types of students and was really interested in their lives. I guess my sociology life course took the place of other learning.

It was also a tough time for me because me father was dying and I was very tired because we were up all night caring for him - no hospice back then. I remember falling asleep in class quite a bit.