Today I was fortunate enough to spend the whole day working with Vicente - one of the Spanish-speaking liasons - at the Central Library. From 10-12, there was a computer basics class taught in Spanish. Different students were working on different levels, and Vicente did a great job jumping from person to person and helping when people got stuck. They were learning all sorts of cool things, from how a mouse works, to how a search engine functions, to how to make a basic flyer in Mocrosoft Word. Some students were new, but many were regular customers who come almost every week to improve their computer skills.
The rest of the afternoon I spent helping in the New Americans Center, which is open for adult homework help on Saturdays. They have several tutors in who help out with a wide range of assignments and assist with test preparation. One older woman I talked with comes regularly to work on algebra - she didn't understand it when she was in high school and was always sort of afraid of math because she was never encouraged to try hard in school. She was so proud to show me how she had learned to graph, not just on paper, but using a program on a laptop.
I also worked with an older woman from Somalia who was working on an English Language class assignment - she wrote an essay about where she would like to visit if she could plan a vacation (Atlanta, Georgia). It was inspiring to work with each individual, and I would love to offer something similar right before of after our English classes at Northern Lights.
I also got to browse the current art exhibit in the Cargill Hall - a community art project called PostSecret during a quick break. Check out http://postsecret.blogspot.com/ for more details if you are interested...
I spent the last two hours of my day working in a conversation circle - we had seven students from all different places - Guinea, Togo, Egypt, China, and Ecuador. It was so interesting to compare the conversation circle to the one I attended earlier in the week - the feel was completely different with more attendees and a different facilitator. It was a great day, but I am absolutely exhausted. 47 out of 100 hours down - only 53 more before next Friday!
Tomorrow is day 7 - and I plan to rest as the good Lord intended (at least when I am done finalizing recommendations for the website project).
1 comment:
Wow - I'm getting tired just reading! Sounds like an intense time - but well worth it. I love that Saturday HHC for adults. I wonder if we could start to offer that sort of thing at all of our HHCs. That's a lot of work, though - and we'd need a whole different slate of volunteers.
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