Jamie Ann’s Story
Jamie Ann is 21 and lives with her parents. She was raised in a well-educated, financially stable family. While she was definitely the under-achiever in her family of two sisters and a brother, Jamie Ann has always been too unfocused to settle down at anything – including school. Her family has always stepped in and helped her when she needed it.
Jamie Ann’s unique approach to life showed early. She was an energetic little girl, very smart, eager to learn, and bounced from one activity to another. Teachers talked to her often for too much talking and for getting out of her seat. They also praised her for learning quickly. In junior high school, this energy began working against her. Jamie Ann had trouble concentrating long enough in class to learn the more complex material like science and advanced math. In high school, she could read two or three books a week, but she hated school. She hated sitting in school all day bored out of her mind. She hated dealing with, what she called, idiot kids and teachers. By the first semester of her senior year, even though her grades were not bad, she was so miserable that she dropped out of school. She soon got a job as the receptionist at a local commercial plumbing contractor and supplier. Her parents had arranged for her application to this job, and they did their best to find new jobs for Jamie Ann every few months when boredom or a bad error due to inattention caused her to lose job after job.
Jamie Ann has been jobless for two months. It has been two and half years since she dropped out of high school, and she realizes it was a mistake. She wants to move out. She wants to find a job that she will like, and now sees that she first needs her General Educational Development (GED) certification so she can get on a path to start making more money. She is getting ready to prepare for and tackle the GED.
As a learner, Jamie Ann is still as eager as she ever was. It excites her to absorb new information, and she has plenty of technology skills to call on for navigating lessons on the computer. The problem is she assumes she understands everything once she has learned a little, so she often races on to another topic before she has fully grasped the current one.
She hates when people criticize her work. Although her reading level is 12th grade, she is missing some of the background knowledge that a high school graduate should have. She admits that she focuses on herself. While Jamie Ann likes to learn new things, they do not mean much to her unless she can relate them directly to her own interests or needs.
Her goals now are to pass the GED. She concludes that she is almost done with high school anyway, so it won’t be hard. Then, she wants to get into college, and find a well-paying job that she likes. She is motivated to succeed and achieve her goals. Some people say she has too much confidence. She thinks it is better than having too little.