This week we shine the spotlight on Cholena and Kachina Dabney, students at Oakton Community College, Skokie. After a traumatic break up of their family life, sisters Cholena and Kachina were home schooled and virtually isolated for many years. Entering the GED program, they were faced with the challenges of diverse classmates, both in age and ability as well as personality and culture.

The sisters were uncomfortable in new groups, had to learn to share the teacher’s attention with others, be flexible enough to embrace time limits on different subjects and switch to different subjects with different groups in classroom settings. With humor, determination and persistence, they adapted very well. In fact the sisters became confident enough to help other struggling students. The two have bloomed from shy, unfocused dreamers into confident young women with goals and plans to accomplish them. While they were excellent creative writers, the sisters had to make their everyday writing more grammatically correct.

Cholena and Kachina both worked hard and increased their reading scores considerably. They plan to obtain their GED and open a bookstore together.