With classes starting again, there are plenty of excited students and teachers. I came across this article and even though it is directed towards teachers, the message applies to anyone who teaches, tutors, trains or facilitates learning. I hope it inspires future and current Turning Pages tutors. Enjoy.
What Students Remember Most About Teachers by pursuitofajoyfullife
Editor’s note: Today’s post comes from tutor and board member Allison Matthews.
I met up recently with one of our newest volunteers, T.V. Weber, to observe him tutoring his learner and to chat about his work for Turning Pages. Although he and his wife, Alida, have only been with us a short time, he brings with him a long history of service to adults who are learning English as a second language.
When I arrived, the learner, an advanced ESL student from India, was reading aloud an article about methods for reducing carbon emissions. T.V. listened patiently, jumping in from time to time to correct her pronunciation and make sure she’s comprehending the passage. Some of the new words she encounters lead to interesting discussions about the English language’s roots in other languages. When he notices she’s beginning to feel frustrated by a difficult-to-pronounce word, he stops to offer her an additional dose of positive feedback.
After they complete the article, T.V. has his learner read from a high-interest textbook he’s brought about the Egyptian pyramids. Throughout the session, the two maintain an easy rapport. It’s clear they respect each other and enjoy learning together.
At the end, T.V. asks her, “What do you still want to ask me? You’ve got that look on your face…” His learner just grins. Now it was my turn to ask some questions! Here’s what I found out:
How long have you been working with Turning Pages?
I think it’s already been 2 months, but it doesn’t feel like that long!
What prompted you to volunteer as an adult literacy tutor?
TESOL has always been a “hobby” for me. I have one student from Puerto Rico I’ve worked with for 5- 6 years. I’ve seen her go from speaking virtually no English to using it on her job. My wife Alida and I are considering moving to another country to teach English, so we decided to volunteer as a team for Turning Pages to gain teaching experience.
What past experiences have prepared you for the work you’re doing now?
My great-grandparents immigrated here from Czechoslovakia when they were teenagers. My grandparents spoke only Czech, and if you wanted to communicate with them, you’d better speak it, too! So, my father grew up bilingual and bicultural, and he passed on the family expectation that we kids be fluent in more than just English.
What’s the most important insight you’ve gained from the time you’ve spent with adult learners?
To teach ESL right, you need to have tried to learn another language yourself so you can understand the difficulties people face when they are learning a second language! Last year, I was in Chile and accidentally told a clerk that I was going to hit her when I was trying to say that I would pay the bill. Experiences like that remind me of how important it is to be precise with your vocabulary!
What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about becoming a tutor for Turning Pages?
Do your best to put yourself in the shoes of your learner so you can prioritize the weaknesses that need to be addressed in order for her to communicate successfully in our culture.
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Wishing you a happy and healthy start to 2014 full of family, friends, and good books.
We at Turning Pages are looking forward to continuing our work in the new year. We envision a Midlands in which all adults will have the literacy skills to participate productively at home, at work and in our community. We see it as our mission to help adults in the Midlands read and write better to improve their incomes and lives.
We invite you to join us in whatever way you can, whether it be attending a tutor training and working one-on-one with a learner, donating some old books as you do your January cleaning, or starting off the year with a financial contribution. (It’s easy – we have Paypal!) As always, thank you for what you do to support literacy in the Midlands!
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The end of the year and beginning of a new one is a good time to think about Claire Booth Luce’s challenge to write your life sentence. “See if you can summarize your life in one sentence,” she urged her friends.
Mrs. Luce was an accomplished actress, writer and diplomat. Her challenge is one worth addressing. If you summarize the importance of your life in a single sentence, what would you write? How often would you rewrite it? A single sentence forces us to focus on what’s important to us.
What is your life’s purpose?
What have you done with it?
That’s your life sentence.
Here at Turning Pages, with help from fellow Rotarians, volunteer tutors and board members, our purpose is to help adults learn to read or read better, write and acquire other life skills. This serves three vital purposes:
If you would like to help us help more people, please click on “Donate” to the left on this page where you can make a tax-deductible donation before the end of the year. Thank you.
Friends, I’m happy to announce that we are receiving some support from Trinity Episcopal. They have chosen us as a beneficiary of their Holiday Bazaar. Please come support the Bazaar on Saturday November 9th from 10 to 2 PM at 1100 Sumter Street. There will be family activities and games, delicious food, AND you can get a jump on your shopping lists while supporting several local charities and nonprofits. Hope to see you there
Editor’s note: Today is the first in a series of Q&As to help you get to know our board! We are starting off with Allison Matthews, who has been with us for a little over a year now.
What brought you to Turning Pages?
I come from a family of educators, and in high school, I became especially interested in helping people learn to read. I left Columbia for college, then started a career as an elementary-school teacher. When I moved back to Columbia, I wanted to find a place to volunteer during my summers off. I decided to look for a place that works with adult learners, and, voila! I found Turning Pages.
How long have you been working with your learner?
Ms. G. and I have been working together since June 2012.
What is one of your best “success” moments in working with Ms. G?
When we first started working together, Ms. G would often read through a paragraph quickly, making several errors that affected the meaning of the text, and just move on without understanding what she had read. I brought this to her attention and taught her the strategy of stopping after each paragraph to tell what she learned in her own words. Now, I’ve started noticing that she stops herself to summarize even without me reminding her.
Tell us about a challenge and how you negotiated it.
An ongoing challenge with tutoring is finding the best instructional methods and texts for Ms. G. She has some very distinct strengths as a reader, along with some significant challenges. I’m constantly having to adjust my approach to find what’s most effective.
As a board member, the main challenge is feeling overwhelmed by all the work we’d like to do to improve the services we offer our learners. I think we as a team have gotten a lot better about prioritizing what needs to be done, then dividing the labor so we can knock it all out. It’s an exciting time.
What is your favorite thing about Turning Pages?
It’s definitely the people! Ms. G. and I have built a great friendship. I enjoy working with and learning from my fellow board members, all of whom are passionate about adult literacy. And every volunteer I have gotten to meet is so dedicated and kind. It’s just so encouraging to be a part of this organization.
What do you do when you’re not volunteering with Turning Pages?
Try to make myself useful! I believe it’s very important to be active as a Christian and church member, so that’s a big part of my life. I teach fourth grade Language Arts and Social Studies, so that’s another sizeable chunk, for sure. Other than that– I dabble in music, writing, and the (very) occasional jog!
Are you reading anything good lately?
The book of Isaiah and Time Magazine.
What is your favorite book now? From childhood?
Oh, man. There are so many good ones out there. But my all-time favorite is still Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth. I mean, it’s got adventure, solid character development, humor, important life lessons, and an astounding number of puns. What more could you really ask for in a book?
If you could have lunch with one author, living or dead, who would it be?
If I wanted to enjoy my lunch and learn something, it would be C.S. Lewis. He offers so much wisdom through his writing– and humor, too.
If I wanted to tell someone off while eating lunch, it would be Ernest Hemingway. I would encourage him to be a less terrible human being and to occasionally try writing longer sentences.
If you had to choose between visiting Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, or Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, which would it be?
One of the most important questions in life. Both would be cool, but I would go to Hogwarts. If I went to the factory, I would probably fall into the chocolate lake and get stuck in the pipe just like Augustus Gloop.
Editor’s note: Today’s post first appeared in the Lexington County Chronicle on May 30, 2013. It is posted here with permission. Lexington Publishing Co., Inc. retains all rights.
Sandra Dayse loves teaching school. She spent 17 of her happiest years in classrooms. But her life at home was something else. Sandra was the victim of an increasingly common crime.
Her husband abused her.
More than 36,000 victims annually report domestic violence to law enforcement agencies in the state, according to statistics compiled by Attorney General Alan Wilson’s office. Over the past 13 years, an average 33 women have been killed each year by their intimate partner.
Now she works in customer service for the state Department of Natural Resources and attends Life Springs Worship Center on Platt Springs Road. Based on her experience, Sandra responded to an appeal to her church for literacy tutors. Now she tutors learners such as Tammy Myers, a mother who wants to improve her limited reading skills, help her children with their home work, qualify for a General Education Diploma and get a better job to help her husband with family expenses. Sandra was born in New Jersey, taught in Nevada and North Carolina and came to South Carolina where her mother lives.
“I told God that if He would deliver me from domestic violence,” she said, “I would devote my life to serving him.”
Sandra also feels a responsibility to the community that helped her deal with her family troubles. She has taken vacation time this summer to work with Tammy and to read to children at Carolina Springs Elementary School. Sandra has found that tutoring instruction she received from Turning Pages motivating and instructive. She believes the one-to-one tutoring that Turning Pages offers is the best instruction for someone like Tammy who suffers from dyslexia, a learning disorder that makes reading and writing difficult.
“Tammy is determined,” she says of her learner. “Everyone here wants to help her. Finally she has an opportunity to move forward in reading.”
Stay tuned for Tammy’s story…
People reading below the 4th grade level are at an extreme disadvantage. They cannot fill out employment applications and cannot read or write well enough in today’s challenging job market to qualify for more than the most menial, low-paying jobs.
Research indicates 10% of Lexington County’s population and 12% of Richland County’s are in this fix. That’s more than 66,000 peoplle — more than 1 in 10 of us. This places a huge burden on 66,000 people, their families and the rest of us.
Many of them are permanent wards of the state. Our taxes keep them alive. This deprives us of capable employees who work, support their families and contribute taxes to pay for the services local, state and federal agencies provide.
Turning Pages’ mission is to teach these unfortunates to read and write so that they can qualify for better jobs and join the rest of us as responsible citizens in caring for our families.
Our small team of volunteer tutors, even smaller volunteer board of trustees and tiny administrative staff tackle the formidable task of teaching people to read, write and other needed life skills.
We clearly need your support. Here are nine ways you can help:
1. Volunteer to tutor adults. We will teach you to use your own skills and the Laubach method as a tutor at our learning center in Columbia near Richland Mall and in available space in libraries and other places of public accommodation in Lexington and Richland counties.
2. Persuade illiterate adults to learn to read. Many of them are ashamed of this and strive daily to hide it. But their families usuually know the truth. If you know someone who needs our help, please encourage them to contact us.
3. Donate to Turning Pages. A fully tax deductible gift of as little as $100 will pay for the materials a learner needs to learn to read and write. You can easily make a donation with your credit card at our web site.
4. Invite us to give a program for your group. We speak to many church, civic and community groups about the needs of illiterate adults. You will find it a moving and informative program that will interest and excite your members and spur a few of them to become involved in this worthy cause.
5. Attend our fundraisers. Our next fundraiser, “Reading Between the Wines,” is a 5-course gourmet wine dinner at 6 p.m. Thursday, June 6, at Main Street Cafe in Lexington. Advance reservations at $100 a couple are required.
6. Hold a yard sale fundraiser. Invite your friends and neighbors to clean out all that stuff cluttering their attics, basements and garages and sell them at a central location. Let shoppers know that their dollars are going to our Turning Pages literacy movement.
7. Start a collection jar. Put a small sign on it letting people know you’re collecting for literacy. Put it on your counter, your desk or in your break room at work. Suggest people donate their loose change.
8. Hold a bake sale and/or raffle. At your next event, invite your members to donate home-made items such as breads, cakes, jams, jellies and pies to raise money. Also ask them to donate no longer wanted items to a raffle and sell tickets.
9. Write a letter to the editor. Let the readers of your local community newspaper know about the pressing need to help those who cannot read. If you need facts for such a letter, you will find them on our fact page here, or give us a call at 782-1210.
Thank your for your encouragement and support.
Editor’s note: Today’s post comes from volunteer and Board member Allison Matthews. She teaches fourth grade.
We all can think of exemplary teachers who have taught us powerful lessons. Our government and communities cry out for more highly-qualified teachers in the classroom, and districts across the country nominate one outstanding Teacher of the Year annually. There’s no doubt about it: We love teachers who excel at what they do! But in all our talk about exemplary educators, we have marginalized one group that’s been crying for attention for years: imaginary teachers. That’s right, friends! We can learn a TON from characters in books. They have no voices with which to speak, and yet the lessons they emblazon in our minds will last much longer than the pages on which those lessons are written. We have been ignoring these fictitious, fake teachers among us, and it’s time we recognize the contributions they have made to our well-being. I’ll start with a few shout-outs to some of my favorites.
When I’m tempted to make excuses for my shortcomings, I always picture Emma’s noble Mr. Knightley, furrowing his brow and saying, “There is one thing, Emma, a man can always do if he chooses, and that is his duty.” That message is especially powerful in the book because he’s sharing it with Emma, a person he actually likes and cares for a great deal. But that doesn’t stop him from telling it like it is and giving her a reminder she needs to hear. You just can’t sneak anything by Mr. Knightley—he doesn’t take junk from anyone, and he doesn’t play favorites.
When I’m feeling overwhelmed by an obstacle in my path, I think of Santiago, the old man from The Old Man and the Sea. He taught me that even when you’ve worn blisters into your hands and there’s a bone spur in your heel and you’ve spent 3 dehydrated days trying to catch a giant fish … you can still think to yourself, “We were born lucky!” because, hey, at least you don’t have to catch the moon or the sun. Who can whine when such a cheerful teacher is leading the class?
One of my favorite lessons was taught by a boy called Alec Bings, Who Sees Through Things. This Phantom Tollbooth character shows his friend, Milo, a bucket of water and explains, “from an ant’s point of view, that’s a vast ocean, from an elephant’s just a cool drink, and to a fish, of course, it’s home. So, you see, the way you see things depends a great deal on where you look at them from.” I think of that bucket of water a lot when I’m trying to understand why other people act the way they do. Their decisions may not be what I would choose, but then again, they’re starting from a completely different point of view. Alec Bings is a teacher who knew the power one simple picture can have in driving a lesson home.
Then, of course, are the teachers who lead by example. One of the greatest fictional leaders I can think of is from that illustrious, time-honored, highly sophisticated classic, The Little Engine That Could. In the face of nearly insurmountable difficulties, she just tells herself, “I think I can! I think I can!” — and she can. And if a goofy blue train from a children’s book can be that powerful, what’s to stop me from overcoming the obstacles in my path?
Stuffy Englishmen, tenacious old men, floating fantasy characters, and talking trains—I have been a student of all these exemplary teachers and more. I’m so blessed to be a tutor for Turning Pages, because it gives me the opportunity to make these ltierary lessons available to other people!
Turning Pages 