What makes life worth living? It really comes down to a series of moments throughout life that make up the “highlight reel” of your existence. They can be as significant as graduation or as subtle as a quick conversation that leads you to reevaluate a significant part of your life. While it may seem insignificant and unplanned, moments like these can change the trajectory of your life.
John Keisling started our Sylvan learning. He would never have switched careers mid-life to educate if it had not been for one specific life moment. Senator Lamar Alexander (who was then our governor) recruited Nissan to build in Tennessee, a milestone in our state. He then convinced them that we had people with the skills to meet their requirements. John was operating a small hardwood dimension plant in Sparta. The state had to recruit from a broad area to get ideal candidates. He lost many of his best employees. John secured grants from the U.S. Department of Labor and Education to educate replacements.
The moment for his defining change came when he received the National Workplace Literacy Award from Barbara Bush. It was October 31, 1991, when she was the first lady. When they met, she gave him a big bear hug as though she had known him all his life. She then asked if he was taken aback a bit by her outfit which was a red blouse, brown skirt, and a pink jacket. She told him that when she went to the oval office that morning to tell President Bush where she was going, he asked her why she was dressed like that. She said, “It’s Halloween and this is my Dick Tracy investigative outfit.” It became the defining moment in John’s life. She acted like a real grandmother and made him promise to keep doing more for literacy. Sylvan later selected him in a competitive selection process for the franchise for the Upper Cumberland (UC)
Barbara Bush U.S. First Lady (1925-2018)
She tirelessly championed the cause of literacy throughout her life and founded the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. We are keeping our promise we made to her personally and to her sweeping legacy.
Sylvan has 800 retail locations worldwide and more than 5,000 school relationships. They have just completed over 35 years of great results for students. Sylvan Learning has the highest market share of all paid tutoring brands, significantly outpacing their competitors. Our rural Sylvan Learning center has over two decades of serving the UC area. We are the only Sylvan Center that is operated by a nonprofit organization. We would like to ignite one of those defining learning moments in your family. Those moments do matter!