Community Connections Publication Party

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Last Friday was the publication party for Ship and the FCLC's Oral History book. Students read from their essays and many of the community partners were able to join us. I thought I would share some photos from the event (you'll have to excuse the lighting...my camera isn't the greatest). There was a photographer a bit more experienced than I am there to take some other photos-- perhaps I can post those later.

I loved seeing the students meet again with their community partners after the readings and chat-- this wasn't a requirement but most of the students did it anyway and it was really sweet to see.

Also, doesn't the cover look fantastic? Megan Fick, the student editor, did a great job.

FCLC Fundraising Event

 

Everyone should visit Pizza Hut on Dec. 7th to benefit the literacy council!

You must order the buffet when you visit; ordering pizzas won't count for the council.

A Unique Obstacle in Adult Learning

Teaching adults at the literacy council is a much different experience than tutoring fellow students on campus. I work with different materials, learning approaches, references, and examples. But there is another aspect of this comparison that separates these two extra-curricular activities, and every week I enter the Literacy Council I am confronted by it.

Adult learners are in the GED prep program because, obviously, they did not complete their high school degree and they wish to do so. There are a variety of reasons that a person does not complete her high school degree, and I’m sure readers can brainstorm what these reasons may be. The adults that drop out of high school and come to the literacy council do not suddenly lose those reasons. Perhaps the curriculum was too slow and she felt bored, uninterested; that person will still want a faster-paced curriculum. Maybe there were financial or family issues that impeded progress in a highly-structured environment like a high school; that person may still experience those same burdens, and they could even be heightened.

Remember in my earlier posts that I was tutoring two girls? I blogged about the challenges of making a small-group tutoring session work and the dynamics of the students during this time. Unfortunately, one of those girls has not been in the tutoring session for a few weeks, and she is dangerously close to being removed from the program. This truly saddens me, and every week I hold on to the hope that she will show up. (However, my concern if this happens is that I am already that much further ahead with the student that does come regularly every week—how can I bridge the gap? Perhaps this is a question for another time.)

I spoke with one of the coordinators at FCLC about this dilemma, and she said that this happens frequently in an adult learning program. Things like family issues, economic troubles, and transportation problems keep a person from being able to regularly visit the council, and so the list of students at the council is always changing. She told me that perhaps right now is not the best time for my student to come. Maybe she has other things on her mind.

In college tutoring, the students typically don’t have serious problems like that. Their biggest worry might be that there is a paper due the next day, that they have to pull an all-nighter, or that the liquor store closes before their class is over. I know that I am generalizing—a lot of college students have serious problems, too. My financial problems are what brought me to Shippensburg in the first place, so I understand this frustration. But school, for most of us in our late teens and early twenties, is still priority number one. This is not always the case with learners at the literacy council—their education may come second to their job or family, and this is totally understandable. A volunteer tutor needs to keep this in mind and be flexible or the tutor/student relationship will not survive. Every week that I come into the Literacy Council, there is a chance that my students cannot make it. There is no school bus faithfully waiting to pick them up every morning, and right now, finding a location that is hiring so that she can make money and pay for life’s necessities is more important than making it to our tutoring session every Wednesday morning. I think, as a college student, I take for granted the opportunities I have that enable me to learn—I have a supportive family, a fairly reliable mode of transportation, and a wonderful financial aid package that keeps me in school. But not all of the students at the literacy council are offered these chances, and so while it initially frustrated me to learn week after week that my student couldn’t make it, I have to step back and see the big picture.

Hopefully my student comes back because I envision making real progress with her. However, I realize that I have very little control over the matter. The best thing that I can do is be there for her when she’s ready and has everything else figured out, because that is the only time she’ll really be able to learn.

Building Confidence

When I was in elementary school, I remember being a candidate for an advanced-track learning program. I was in second grade and already reading at a fourth or fifth grade level, so I suppose the teachers and counselors felt it was best to challenge me a bit more. But before I could be admitted to this program—I can’t remember the exact name of it—I had to take and pass an oral test with a counselor to prove I was prepared for higher-level work. My teacher ushered me into his office and he welcomed me with a smile and a kind voice, doing everything in his power to ensure that I knew I was in a safe and positive environment.

But here’s the thing—I didn’t know this guy. And for that program there were no gradual steps taken to increase familiarity before the test. So when I, a seven year old girl already considered timid in comparison to other second graders, entered this strange room, I became even more withdrawn. I remember him asking me questions and even if I had an inkling of the answer, I shrugged because I was afraid of being wrong in front of a stranger. He encouraged me, nearly pleaded with me, to just guess even if I wasn’t completely sure. “If you guess,” he said, “you get more points than if you don’t answer at all.” But I just couldn’t. I was so afraid of being wrong and disappointing him that I barely spoke (which, I realize, was probably a lot more disappointing). And so I was not admitted into the advanced learning program.

I tutor a girl weekly whose reluctance to answer the questions I ask, even when I can see she knows or at least has an idea of the answer, reminds me of that feeling I had when I was young. She came in at first and hardly spoke a word, didn’t want to read out loud, and basically gave the impression that she didn’t want to be there. I struggled with this because the other girl I tutor is outgoing and ready to tackle any problem. I misread her reluctance at first as a dismissal of my tutoring or of the program and I wasn’t sure how to handle that. I tried to reason out ways in which I could make the material more interesting or relevant to real life.

As more information about her life came out, however, I realized that she was like me in that office in second grade. She told me about her sister, a graduate of a prestigious school in Georgia, and called her “the smart one.” I met her parents, who seemed intent to get her through the program as quickly as possible. I began to understand the pressure this girl must feel to learn all of these concepts and ideas at once. Not answering the questions had nothing to do with how much she was invested in the work, and had everything to do with the insecurities she felt about being wrong and disappointing others: me, the girl she usually tutors with, her parents, her sister, or the coordinators at the literacy council. She simply needed a lesson in confidence.

I thought that perhaps I should first level the playing field. She saw me as the tutor, the teacher, the instiller of knowledge; but I wanted to be more of a friend, a support system, someone you could mess up in front of and it would be okay. So I started admitting some times I’ve been wrong on tests or in stressful situations to expose myself as a fellow learner without appearing incompetent as a tutor. I started letting humor guide the lesson so that she felt at ease with me. Most of all, I started to build her confidence by using a lot of positive reinforcement while being empathetic and nonjudgmental when she answered a question incorrectly. I tried to understand where she was coming from to arrive at her answer to show that her line of reasoning wasn’t necessarily wrong, but the GED is a strict and particular test. I tried to foster creativity in the lessons by removing ourselves from the book for a bit and brainstorming—an activity that allowed her to think while also being valued for her unique input. For example, we were discussing nonfiction and fiction writing on Wednesday, but rather than refer to the book right away for definitions, I had her think of certain things that were fictional. At first she was slow to answer, but eventually came an outpour of movie titles she liked—Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc. She continued naming new fiction film titles she thought of throughout the entire lesson as her confidence in the material grew.

I think it’s important as adult tutors to understand that a lack of confidence, not knowledge or reasoning, is sometimes at the root of a learning difficulty. This girl is smart and I feel that as we spend more time together one-on-one, she picks up on concepts a lot more quickly. She is choosing the right answer on objective quizzes more often than not. Her reading comprehension is up. She makes spontaneous connections from previous tutoring sessions that I didn’t think of while planning the lesson. Just as I became more confident in my answers and ideas as I became close with my teachers, she has increased her writing and reading skills by getting to know me. With a calm, kind, and supportive atmosphere, this girl can learn as well as anybody else.

A Note On Blogging

I'm a big fan of blogging. I keep a personal blog that I update somewhat frequently with pictures, thoughts, or snippets of my daily life so that I can look back years from now and remember-- kind of like a virtual scrapbook. It's a huge creative and introspective release for me because for some reason, actual handwritten journaling is something I can't seem to keep up with for more than a few months. I think hand-cramping has something to do with it.

For the most part, only my closest friends who also keep blogs ever read it. Since it's a public blog for the moment, I receive a comment from a stranger every now and then who likes a picture I've taken or is also a big Parks and Recreation fan and wants to share that with me. And that's totally fine with me because in my experience, those who tend toward personal blogs are creative types who are genuine, have similar interests to me, and are very kind. This is the reason you can often find me, when I get a moment, following links to all sorts of different blogs and learning about photography, vegan cooking, mindfulness, or a stranger's daily life.

So before I embarked on this little Americorps journey, I was already aware of what blogs can do. I was aware of their entertainment value, their ability to communicate ideas, and the ease with which you can jot down memories and upload photos. But I wasn't sure if my blog for the literacy council would really catch on-- after all, my personal blog has a readership of 20, max, and I've had it for years.

Then I got an email that I never would have expected; an 18 year old girl in Austria (that's right, EUROPE) wrote a lovely email to me that said how my blog inspired her to do volunteer work and asked if I was aware of foreign exchange volunteer opportunities in the U.S.

Wait, what? you say. I said the same thing. I was in disbelief that my writing from small town Shippensburg, PA could impact somebody across the Atlantic. I won't share all the details from her email because I respect her privacy, but I will quote one thing to show the power of blogging for social action:

"I'm 18 years from Austria and I've been really inspired following your adventures... you definitely encouraged me to step outside my comfort zone and go out to see the world (also around me) more often. It's just very inspiring to keep coming back to your blog!"

Here's what this little note taught me: Not only is having this space to reflect on my own service learning moments valuable as a developing and growing person, but it is also a huge source of advocating for volunteer service in general. It's cathartic for me to sit down and genuinely reflect on my service, and I think blogging is the best way for me to do that. It is an unintended but very welcome consequence to have those words I write motivate somebody else to give their time.

So thank you, new friend from Austria, for allowing me to truly realize the power of blogging for something bigger than myself. Thank you for showing me that no effort is ever wasted in my weekly hour-long meditation on literacy and service. I owe you one.

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To that end, does anybody know of any volunteer organizations I can have contact her? She would like to volunteer somewhere that would offer accommodation-- perhaps a foreign exchange program. For her kind email and my subsequent epiphany, I would like to help her out as much as possible. Email me at fclcvista@gmail.com if you're familiar with any great opportunities. Thanks!

Oral History Project

For the past two weeks, I've been helping with interviews for an Oral History assignment in Dr. Cella's WIFYS class. This project allows freshman students to leave campus and interview people in the community, and then write an essay about their stories for publication in an anthology titled Community Connections. Usually, the interviewees are chosen by the students so the anthologies consist of stories from a multitude of careers and lifestyles, with different ages and different goals. This diversity is still shown in those interviewed this year, but Dr. Cella decided to use a common theme for this year's project to underscore each story-- literacy.

So, of course, the interviewees all work with the literacy council in one way or another. Among those interviewed, there are students of basic literacy and ESL, volunteer tutors,  Marie, the FCLC coordinator, and even translators. There have been two rounds of interviews so far, and currently students are working on their essays.

My involvement with this project so far has been to facilitate the interviews at the literacy council and help Marie when she needs it. I will also be helping the students in drafting their essays. It has been a valuable experience to see how something like this comes together, and I hope the people interviewed from the literacy council will appreciate their stories being told once they see them in print and get to take a copy of the collection home with them.

However, this blog functions not only as a place to record and remember the tasks I've completed, but also to evaluate what was useful and what I would change. With that said...

What was useful:

• Having the students carpool. An original idea was that I would be driving the students to their placement, but because I am a busy student, I was happy to hear that most of the students had cars. Of course, I wouldn't have minded-- I just drive a small car and it would have resulted in several trips and lots of gas money.
• Being able to interview both students and volunteers. I think at the beginning of the project Dr. Cella and I were focused on the students, but the perspective of a tutor will add a different dimension to literacy and address the issue from several sides.
• ESL students. I can't wait to read about the lives of those who are not native to America, and especially hear about their struggles with learning a new language and culture.
• Using Honors students. Not that this is a prerequisite for this kind of project, but I think it will result in a deeper contemplation of literacy and the struggles many face with it because the students seem very motivated to make this essay work. I don't mean to be offensive to non-Honors students-- they could definitely pull off this work, too-- but I think that since the students in these two classes have a better understanding of the writing process, they can focus more on the content of their papers and less on the building blocks of essay writing. Also, they may be able to better approach the touchy and sometimes emotional issue of an individual's struggle with literacy.

What I would change:

• The problem most people encountered was the language barrier. We underestimated how many translators we would need and how we should word the questions asked so they were understandable to an ESL student. A better understanding of how many ESL students are willing to be interviewed and what their languages are would allow us to better prepare for this in the future.
• This is one of those things that's kind of difficult to change, but the interview process was more unorganized than I would have liked. Perhaps because I'm somebody who is so organized it borders on neurosis, but I would have liked some sort of document that lists who is interviewing who and the time of the interview. In some sort of calendar or Excel spreadsheet. Color-coded (just kidding). But seriously, this would have made the inevitable surprises (so-and-so didn't show up, these students were late, etc.) a bit simpler to manage.
• Lastly, while making that schedule, I think Marie, Dr. Cella, and I should have met in-person rather than through email. Email is great because it's quick and requires no automobile, but replies to emails come in slowly and everybody seems to be on a different page by the end of it. Carefully planning a schedule that suits everybody should be done when the spokespeople are all present, just to make sure nothing is left out and everyone is prepared.

Overall, the interview process has been a success. Even with those surprises mentioned earlier, everyone got to interview somebody and I'm certain the stories are going to be wonderfully written and entertaining.

I'll write more about the project as it progresses!

(All images photographed by me.)

Finding the Balance

Well, I have successfully completed my first full month of volunteering at the literacy council and with Americorps VISTA. For any that are contemplating an application to the VISTA program next year (my spot will be free, I graduate in May), perhaps what is holding you back is the thought that you will not have the time to volunteer on top of all other obligations. This was my initial apprehension as well, so allow me to put it in perspective.

Without attempting to sound arrogant, I have a very, very full schedule this fall semester. With five courses, two part-time jobs, the role of president in Sigma Tau Delta, and graduate school applications this semester, I'm swamped. But I make time to volunteer because I feel that I have been blessed with the capability to balance all of these things at once and stay afloat. Some days I feel like it is too much, and on those days I am honest with myself and those who ask me to do something extra. For example, because my Tuesday through Thursday is packed to the point that I have no time for lunch (I just eat a sandwich between classes), I make sure my Monday morning is totally free. If I'm asked to help with an ongoing project on Mondays, I'll politely refuse because I know that I need that time to unwind, to possibly drink a few cups of coffee in the silence of my house and mentally prepare for the week.

Every so often I abandon my peaceful Monday morning to help with something that is one-time-only-- talking to Dr. Cella's class about the council, for example, or providing transportation to help with the oral history project. Sometimes I use that time to meet with professors about graduate school applications. Either way, it's my choice on Monday mornings. And I think that when someone has a schedule that is so demanding for the rest of the week, having that span of a few hours that are set aside for just slowing down becomes more important than ever.

And yes, sometimes the weight of all of these weekly obligations is a little too heavy, but it's never unbearable. If it were unbearable, I would opt out. But I think the true goal of my year is to prioritize my obligations so there is a balance between self-interested tasks, like studying to make grades that are only mine or applying to graduate school so that I can do what I want, and taking a step outside of my world to help somebody else. Looking at it retrospectively, I was totally self-interested last year when it came to my obligations. I never really carved out the time to pay it forward. On one hand, this selfishness allowed me maintain an impressive GPA, travel throughout Europe, and stand out as an English major to my professors. This time was undoubtedly productive for me as a person and it allowed me to figure out (as cliche as it sounds) who am I and what I want. But I was missing something in all of that, and it wasn't until I joined Americorps that I figured out what that missing thing was.

And yes, sometimes I get stressed, but I can tell you this-- I never walk out of the council with stress. I walk out of the council aware of my capability to do a good thing and to help change a life by disconnecting from my self-obsessed life as a college student. I walk away with a better sense of the importance of education, not just as it pertains to my personal life and goals, but as it pertains to the community as a whole. I walk away knowing that I can maintain my selfishness as a college student while also making time for selflessness.

If you're a person who is barely hanging on as it is, then perhaps volunteering isn't for you right now. An effective VISTA is a person who has carefully crafted the skill needed to balance multiple responsibilities at once, and at times it is tough. But it is always, always worth it in the end.

The Problem of Literacy

Lately I’ve been writing about my personal, individual experiences with tutoring two girls at the literacy council. I enjoy blogging my reflections and I find it useful, but perhaps it may also be valuable to readers of this blog that I give a broad overview of the state of literacy in the US as I understand it. My individual experiences may be interesting, and hopefully readers learn something, but I am not convinced that my personal role at the council explains the issue in a way that provokes others to want to rectify it. 

America has a literacy rate of 99%, and since it is so close to 100%, many often overlook the problem of literacy in this country. (Those people that overlook the problem are usually able to read, write, perform basic arithmetic functions and work fairly well on a computer, however. Those people that overlook the problem also tend to have an income.)

Numbers, however, can be deceiving. Though some people may be literate in that they can read and write English, many have a below basic understanding of reading/writing/mathematics. Those people tend to drop out of high school, but without basic literacy skills they cannot obtain a GED. And without a GED, thousands of jobs are unattainable and the government is forced to pay those people unemployment. Many times, those people want to have jobs—they just have no way of teaching themselves, either because of a lack of understanding or a lack of practice materials. I anticipate certain backlash to the idea of funding a literary council, particularly as our country is in a recession, but I want to point out that an illiterate citizenry costs the country much more than a literacy council does. 

To get an understanding of that 99% of literate Americans, let’s look at some figures compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics. They administer a survey every ten years called the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) that quantifies the US literacy problem.  In a survey of those 16 and over, the results for prose literacy are as follows:

Prose literacy tests include both fiction and nonfiction works, so both stories and newspapers fall under this category. According to the chart, 30 million people are capable of “no more than the most simple and concrete literacy skills.” 30 million people may not be able to read a newspaper properly or even read a book to their children. 

But this is a national statistic, and Pennsylvania is much better off, right? That statistic includes immigrant-heavy zones like lower Florida, the Southwest, and California, so the abundance of ESL citizens may affect those ranking—but let’s look at Franklin County, where I tutor, and assess the problem.

In a population size of 103,549, 13% of those tested placed at a below basic comprehension/understanding of prose. In other words, about 13,461 wouldn’t be able to pass their GED if they dropped out of high school without proper support and encouragement.

This number astounds me. Hopefully it astounds you as well. Volunteer work at a Literacy Council is helping, one person at a time, to shape an entire community, your community. If you forget about the enormous national number and just focus on one county at a time, it becomes manageable. Perhaps I could not feel like I was making a difference if I only looked at that staggering 30 million below the levels of basic literacy. But if I devote myself to just Franklin County, and just those two students I help every week (for now), I can see right away that I am making a difference. I focus so heavily on those two students in my reflections on this blog, but at times it is valuable to look at the bigger picture and realize those incremental changes that are being made. 

From a purely economical standpoint, it costs the country money to fund those who are illiterate. Many more skills and experience are required today to find employment and the market is competitive. Education is more important than ever.

But it is not mere economics that supports the role of a Literacy Council. From a humanist standpoint, every person deserves the right to seek assistance when they are struggling, especially when that person is actively seeking a way to better their life situation. Education not only creates a better workforce; it creates a better community. According to a brochure I found at the Literacy Council, “higher literacy levels in a community coincide with lower levels of crime and human rights abuse.” With education comes compassion, empathy, and genuine caring, and it is those characteristics that create a positive community.

So hopefully, after all of this, you understand that just because America is 99% literate, it does not mean we all have proficient literacy skills. Within that large group there are millions of people who could not effectively read current events on their own or fill out a job application without assistance. But this number can change, and that 99% can become more reflective of a literate America if volunteers are willing to give a little time to those who need help learning and re-learning comprehension, passage analysis, mathematics, and vocabulary. We can chip away at that 30 million by focusing on the 13,000 in our community and doing something about it.

To find out more about NAAL, click here.

A Lesson Learned in Small Group Tutoring

As I was settling in with my regular student (who I wrote about in last week's post) and we were discussing the areas she wanted to work on that day, an unfamiliar person walked through the door and sat down beside me. I said "hello" cheerfully, but I was a little bit confused. Shortly after, my adviser walked in and told me that I would be tutoring both students that day because they were on roughly on the same level of pre-GED work.

So this was new territory. As I said before, one-on-one tutoring is easy for me. I'm comfortable in that situation because I can devote all of my energy into helping just that person. I can tailor my methods and my tutoring personality to what appeals to that student, to what is most effective for her. And honestly speaking, I've been pretty successful in that atmosphere; so when asked to change this dynamic by including another person, I was a bit uneasy.

The session started out rockier than I had hoped. The new student wasn't totally receptive to the way I presented the information. For example, with my original student, we would take turns reading the questions and the answers so I could hear when she was confused about a word. She stumbled on the word "census" in a graph question, and although it wasn't necessary to the math portion of the GED that she understood it, I realized that the word "census" may be important in the social studies section so I explained what it is, how often it is sent to households, and its purpose. The new student gave me a sideways glance and kind of scoffed at me when I asked her to read a question aloud. My first student was eager to read, but the new student wasn't. I sighed, assuming this would be an uphill battle.

But I tried to make it better and make the new student comfortable. I got the impression she didn't really want to be there. She was dropped off and picked up by her parents, so it wasn't as though she was attending the session on her own. There was some coercion involved, clearly. Eventually, as she became used to the way I tutored the other girl, she saw I wasn't trying to embarrass her by having her read aloud. She noticed it was just the way that I ran the session so I could improve their reading through practice and individual help.

As it turns out, she is a pretty fast reader, much faster than my first student. And with this information, I began worrying about something else-- would she be too bored by this session? I could recall sitting in classrooms where I was ahead of everyone else, so I became withdrawn and scoffed at the things we were asked to do. Those classes didn't challenge me, and so I felt they were a waste of my time. Perhaps this new student was feeling the same way I do in those situations.

After that session, I talked to Marie (my adviser) about that observation. She pointed out to me that yes, the new student could read better as far as speed and accuracy goes, but could she comprehend what it was she read? I thought back to the session-- while my older student struggled with the actual words, when it came to answering questions, she actually was more aware of what the question was asking. The new student often had to return to the question and re-read it in its entirety. While there is nothing wrong with a re-read, it would often be immediately after she had read it, and I did get the sense that her comprehension of the text was lower, even though she sounded like an excellent reader.

"I thought it would be helpful to pair these two students together," Marie told me, "because they have skills in separate areas-- [the older student] isn't as good a reader, but she can comprehend better than [the newer student]. They could learn from each other."

Of course. When I first thought about group tutoring, the concept of having the students teach one another is one that did not cross my mind. I assumed I would have to split myself between the two individuals and constantly be going back and forth to explain things. The truth of the matter is, I don't need to be so hard on myself-- they can help each other.

Everybody has their strengths and weaknesses, and the fact that these two students have different strengths is actually a benefit to small group tutoring. This way, it is not just me imparting information or helping them through the problem. Often, I sit back and let them talk through their ideas to come to a conclusion. Most of the time, they figure out the answers together. I would have been oblivious to this if that new student hadn't come in and given me a tutoring challenge.

I usually tutor both of them throughout the week and the newer student is much more receptive to me now. In fact, she showed me a couple of the skills she has-- she is an excellent artist and even showed me how to make an origami box out of a few sheets of paper. And what's even better, both of my students are comfortable with me and with one another, and I've seen their reading skills improve over the past couple of weeks. What was once intimidating to me is now commonplace; small group tutoring pushed me to enhance  my tutoring abilities to accommodate new students and use the resources I have. Sometimes those resources just happen to be other students.

Thoughts on My First Tutoring Session

On my first day of volunteering after the Literacy Carnival, I assumed I would be training or working on some tasks around the office, organizing something, or perhaps reading about ESL. However, a young adult preparing for her GED was scheduled to come in and there were no other volunteers to help her, so my site advisor asked if I would be willing to start tutoring right away. I was excited to begin my main role at the literacy council so soon, but naturally I was a bit nervous because I had never tutored someone for a GED before.

Yet I had tutored young adults in the writing lab on campus. I spent all of last year walking students through the writing process, explaining what a comma splice is, and helping formulate or strengthen a student's thesis. This kind of one-on-one atmosphere I was familiar with, even comfortable in. I typically approach a stressed-out freshman struggling with his final paper in WIFYS with a genuine smile and a few kind words to help him gain confidence in his writing. I give compliments while showing areas that need improvement, and most of the time, it seems as though students leave me after a tutoring session brainstorming new ideas and self-assured they can develop their work. And from my perspective, that means I’ve done my job.

Could I carry this confidence into a new environment? My worry was that I would come off as condescending rather than helpful, or just completely make a fool out of myself in front of somebody who may not want to be there but feels compelled to be so that he or she can find a job. I thought to myself in those brief fifteen minutes I had before my new student arrived, what qualities would I want in a tutor? What would I consider helpful, and what would make me uncomfortable?

The truth is, I’ve never had a tutor of my own; I’ve only played the role. I’ve had advisors and inspirational teachers, though. I knew the qualities I admired in them, the qualities that made me want to be a better learner, that motivated and encouraged me to reach my potential. That attitude is what I wanted to bring to the literacy council to help make it (even more than it already is) a place of helpfulness, earnestness, and progress. To put it simply, I want to make learning pleasurable, not aggravating and frustrating, for the students who come there so that they continue educating themselves and asking questions even after they leave the program.

I definitely lucked out with my first student. She came in motivated to work and succeed, and though she comes from a learning support background, she hasn’t let that impede her desire to test for a GED. Every week so far she has asked for homework, especially for reading assignments because she realizes that is her weakest subject. Rather than roll her eyes when I ask her to read a question aloud, she jumps right in without hesitation, only looking to me when she crosses an unfamiliar word. And best of all, she asks questions about content in the test book that she doesn’t understand rather than brushing it off, which shows me that she is as willing to learn as I am to teach.

We’ve talked about things outside the practice booklet too, especially when something in one of the questions sparks a conversation. For example, a math question involved a graph about refugees, and while it was not particularly important in answering the question, she asked me what a refugee was. After explaining that a refugee is somebody who has been forced out of his country by a government or militia, she looked at me and said, “People actually do that to other people?” She was genuinely interested in something outside her own experience and even if she never joins the Peace Corps or works for UNHCR, she became aware of a situation she may have never learned about otherwise. It sparked a reaction in her and made her curious about the world outside Franklin County, if even for a moment. And that’s what service and volunteerism is all about, right? Making the world a better and more knowledgeable place, one person at a time. 

My nervousness at the beginning was warranted—I mean, this was a completely new kind of tutoring for me-- but I realized quickly that I had to make this environment comfortable for her so that she would come back. I’ve worked with her each Wednesday since then and am now assigned to work with her every Wednesday until there is a scheduling conflict or until she is ready to take the test.

I am so grateful that nobody came to volunteer that first morning of my service because it allowed me to begin building a connection with a student right away, and now I can spend my time looking for new, inventive ways of teaching the information for the GED without any anxiety whatsoever.

Literacy Carnival

Since September is National Literacy Month, those at FCLC decided to start the month with a kid's Literacy Carnival at the Chambersburg Mall! The event was a total success. An especially helpful surprise was the number of incoming Ship students who signed up to volunteer. Many of them helped with carnival games, scavenger hunts, face painting, and even dressed up as the Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 and Thing 2!

First Book was kind to donate around 700 books to give away to families. I helped mostly at this table, and also walked around to check on each table, taking photos and making sure things were going well. Watching the faces of children who were given FREE books was amazing-- one little girl even said, "This is the best place in the entire universe!" The books donated were a range of early children's books like Little Einstein and Disney Princesses to chapter books about the Jonas Brothers and Pirates of the Caribbean.

A magician performed for an hour in the middle of the day, which was a nice break between the morning and the afternoon activities. It gave the kids (and parents) a chance to sit down and be entertained for a bit while the volunteers grabbed lunch and prepared for the afternoon. The kids seemed to really enjoy the "wacky" magician.

Later, Dr. Cella of Ship University read books to a group of kids and, when she finished them, gave them away!

Once again, the success of this event has a lot to do with the generous Ship volunteers who woke up bright and early on a Saturday to spend their day promoting early literacy. We couldn't have done it so well without them, so thank you Ship volunteers!