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!