As a Black man, I realize that I had a great mom. After having taught many mothers in adult literacy and helping them pass the GED test, it is clear to me that what made my mom great was the fact that she was a warrior and that she trained herself to become a warrior.

My mom was raised in Washington, D.C.. She was dark-skinned. Back in the day -- 1930s and 1940s -- in the Black community there was something known as a “paper bag test". This means that if you were darker than a paper bag, be prepared to face some degree of discrimination from your own people as well as the white establishment. My mother focused on developing her speaking skills. She performed in church plays, won city-wide speaking contests and got to go to the best officially segregated “colored” school in D.C.. She later received her teaching degree and later a Master’s degree, which allowed her to become a speech therapist in the D.C. school system. By the way, she went back to get the Master's at age 40 after she had me.

I was raised in a different era, but if she were raising my siblings and me now, these are some of the things she, not only schools, would have passed onto us. Schools are important, and mothers do not have much time, but the cold reality is that most children are as successful as their parents, and not much more. Children are as great as their parents, and particularly their mothers. Be great.

As I mentioned earlier, I taught literacy and GED students for more than 20 years. What you see below is the basic GED curriculum. What inspired me to call it the “Warrior Mom Curriculum” is the strength and power of many of the young mothers from Richmond, California, who persevere to get their GEDs despite overwhelming challenges. Most of them are single mothers with very little money and with a history of poor academic performance. This is their path to academic success. They are excellent role models for their children.

Warrior Mom Curriculum

Make a successful student
1. Successful students relate their class work to clearly defined, long-range goals.
2. Successful students have taken control of their educational experiences.
3. Successful students have learned to be aware of their own learning and thinking processes.
4. Successful students recognize that understanding takes place over time; it is seldom immediate.
5. Successful students use more than one sensory channel to improve their learning.
6. Successful students look for underlying structure in what they are learning.
7. Successful students have a tool kit of ways to learn.

Reading Skills
1. Phonics review
2. Basic grammar practice
3. Comprehension practice

Writing Skills
1. Writing and reading relationships
2. Writing for self-expression
3. Writing process

Math Skills
1. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts
2. Word problem work
3. Basic personal finance

History
1. Personal and ethnicity knowledge
2. US history
3. World history

Success Skills
1. Goal setting
2. Time management
3. Persistence skill enhancement

Science
1. Introduction to physical science
2. Introduction to biology
3. Introduction to earth science
4. Health science

Literature
1. Introduction to Biography
2. Introduction to Poetry
3. Introduction to Short Story analysis

Art
1. General art appreciation
2. How to look at a painting
3. Introduction to music appreciation

Brain Science
1. Brain parts
2. How the brain learns
3. How to keep your brain healthy
4. Introduction to psychology

Computer Skills
1. Usage skills
2. Internet skills
3. Programming skills

Next Level Skills
1. Familiarity with other cultures
2. Fluency in a second language
3. Project management
4. Business start-up
5. Entrepreneurial

Rodney Ferguson is an educated philosopher, author and public speaker. He lives with his family in the San Francisco Bay Area.