ALL

This week, I officially started tutoring with the Adult Literacy League (ALL). The ALL is an nonprofit organization that provides literacy resources, such as classes, materials and tutors to adult learners. Their students range in age from 18-65 and consist of ELLs, many who recently emigrated to the U.S., and adults who just never received a proper education.

From what I can tell, the ALL does not invest much time or money into recruiting. Some of the students had hit many frustrating and discouraging barriers, before becoming motivated enough to enroll in the classes. Many of the students come from lower-income backgrounds, and paying for a class was a last resort. The point is, that the students are there by their own, well reasoned accord. They are highly motivated and put forth tremendous efforts.

On Monday, I met my student for the first time and I must say that it was incredibly encouraging meeting him. We chatted and got to know one another and then discussed his reasoning in coming to the ALL. Alex (pseudonym) is a 26-year-old, father of four who works as a chef for a catering company. He was raised by his grandmother who didn't speak English and was not provided proper instruction throughout his schooling. After some hesitation, Alex came to the ALL because he was tired of being held back due to his lack of literacy skills. As a chef, he would like to be more self-sufficient and capable of reading orders and menus without struggling or the assistance of others. His boss recognizes that he is a hard worker and he hopes that becoming more reading proficient will increase his chances of being promoted. He does not want his children to grow up to be illiterate and he wants to set a good example for them. One of his goals is to be able to read to his children and help them with their schoolwork. He likes cooking and currently cooks, mostly by means of memorization of recipes. Alex would like to be able to read new recipes and cook for his wife, Nadia (pseudonym). He would like to be able to do some personal reading as well. He likes watching the news, but much of the language used is beyond his comprehension, so he would like to increase his vocabulary. He has a pleasant demeanor and is all smiles. His enthusiasm and gratitude is incomparable and I am thrilled to be working with him.

After chit chat and going over materials, we got him a library card and made him a gmail account so we could communicate via internet. He has a computer and internet access at home and is confident in his capabilities to maneuver the internet and email system. In retrospect, I should have made him demonstrate his capabilities, but that is something that I will remedy in our next meeting. After discussing plans for our next meeting and assigning a light homework assignment, we parted ways. The entire meeting was about one and one half hours. I'm looking forward to our next meeting, when we will be covering lesson one and going through a tutorial on using the computer.

Precious and Observing

So, early this week, I watched the film Precious for my Teaching with Film class. Maybe some of you have seen it? If you haven't, I highly recommend it. I won't give away anything here, but I will say that it took me some time to calm my emotions and write my reflection. It was an intense film, to say the least. If you are in the Urban Ed Certificate program, you should definitely not miss this movie.

On another note, I had my first experience as a tutor this week. It was great! We sat in small groups and the setting was pretty informal. Each student had a question in regards to their history class and I helped guide them to the answer. We touched on women's suffrage, and immigration during the Civil War era. Though some students spoke more than others, all of them had something to contribute to the conversation. When we came across a word we were unfamiliar with, we whipped out a dictionary and a thesaurus. From here I was able to briefly touch on the importance of utilizing the resources available to them. When they were done, I reviewed their notes quickly and signed off on their participation in the discussion. I noticed in their notes that there were a lot spelling errors. Even many of the common words were misspelled. That aside, the notes were generally comprehensive of the discussion. The thing I liked most was being able to connect some of the concepts we discussed about the Civil War with other later historical events.

Web Resources Galore!

Success! I have customized my blog!

I wanted to share with you all some cool websites that I thought would be useful. They are listed in the top right corner of this page.

TED is like a youtube for intellectuals that also allows for social networking. There really are some brilliant speakers here. There is also a Podcast and iPod/iPhone Application that you can download for free. Below, I posted a link to Taylor Mali's poem "What Teachers Make". I showed this to my EDF 6237 class last week and it seemed to inspire people. I would highly advise you kill some time browsing TED.

http://www.ted.com/talks/taylor_mali_what_teachers_make.html

Rethinking Schools website is currently being revamped, and I hope that they make it more interactive. I primarily listed Rethinking Schools, not because the website is so good (because it's not), but because I hope you explore the publications that they put out. I started subscribing to their quarterly magazine last semester and I am very happy with my purchase (it wasn't too expensive and they are a nonprofit group, so that makes it easier too). The articles are very progressive and offer some really great ideas on how to reform the education system, simply by reforming your own classroom. Many of the books they publish are equally progressive.

The Zinn Education Project is a website that Rethinking Schools helped sponsor, and it is based on Howard Zinn's, A People's History (Also a Rethinking Schools publication). This website is geared primarily toward social studies teachers. It offers some really great resources and is incredibly user friendly. If you are a social studies teacher, you should definitely check this out.

Edutopia is George Lucas's education foundation. As you would imagine, this is a well funded project and the website is very interactive. The best thing is that many of the videos are available as Podcasts.

Last, but certainly not least...

Democracy Now! is what I would advocate as the best and possibly last source of legitimate comprehensive world news. SO MUCH of the mainstream media is filled with gossip and biased information, where their goal is to boost ratings. Democracy Now is an independent media outlet that seriously delivers compelling stories, that don't cater to any partisan agenda. If there is one website on this list that you explore, let it be Democracy Now (though TED is a very close second on my list). What I recommend to you iTunes users is Podcast it [if you haven't guessed by now, I am a huge fan of podcasts! (especially because they are free)]. I subscribe to it and it automatically downloads whenever there is an episode (they tend to do one almost every weekday). This is also a good source of information to bring into the classroom if you like doing current events.

I hope that this was helpful. Let me know what you think. Also, if there are any good web resources that you know of, please give me a heads up.

Last Week Things Picked Up!

Well, last week, my schedule officially, became hectic. I decided to take five classes this semester so I could do my internship in the Fall and graduate in December. Compared to my schedule last semester, when I took only three classes, I knew that my Spring would be busier, but I'm not working right now, so I didn't think it would be an issue. Last week proved me wrong. In addition to juggling the five classes, two of which require me to observe classrooms, I chose to volunteer with the AVID tutoring program at Jones high school, as well as take on a student with the Adult Literacy League. This is really exciting, because I will finally get some hands on experience with students, but now my schedule has become crazy. It's not so much the work which is making my head spin, but having to remember what day it is and what I'm supposed to be doing that day. This is going to be the semester where I become incredibly organized or I crash and burn. The latter is not an option, so I think I'll start using iCal.

Never blogged before

Okay, so i've never blogged before. It's been my understanding that blogging is typically reserved for those who like to rant and rave about whatever hot topic may be in this weeks press. So, what is in this weeks press? Anyone catch the Superbowl (thats rhetorical; of course you did!). Ow bout dem der Nawlin Saints! I haven't tuned into the news today but I imagine there has been a lot of talk about how great this is for the city of New Orleans and blah, blah, blah. That may seem heartless (blah, blah, blah), but really it's a football game. Granted, it is the biggest football game and apparently it was the single most watched show EVER!, but what did this victory really do for the city of New Orleans? A moral victory? Okay, I guess I'll buy that. It's great that the people of New Orleans have something to smile about but, wouldn't it have been a bigger moral victory if New Orleans had gotten the help it needed (and still does need). I mean, what does the Superbowl say about American priorities? I'm including myself in this. I was rooting the Saint's on, just like the rest of the people who didn't lift a finger for Katrina victims. It's really sad actually. As we all sat on our comfortable couches with a nice cold beer and plenty of food (much of which got thrown away), watching a game on our flat screen High Definition television, nearly 200,000 people lied dead in mass graves just a few hundred miles off our coast. Man, if Haiti could only win a Superbowl, things might not seem so bad (please detect the sarcasm there).