adult literacy training, part one
Apr. 6th, 2005 08:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snugglekittySo, on Monday was my first class in adult literacy tutoring. (For those who just tuned in, I'm learning how to be a tutor - I am satisfied with my current English skills.)
I am going to try to write at least a little about this class when it happens, because I think it might be interesting or inspiring to people.
The teacher is really dynamic. She keeps things moving quickly. I don't find myself wanting to knit or make lists or write poems, which is what I do in boring classes or department meetings.
In our first class, she covered some of the facts that were covered in orientation - a few folks were in the class who hadn't been in orientation. It was good to have a review. The rest of the class, she talked about experiental learning, some theories about how adults learn differently from kids, assessments (how you assess where your learner is, as well as the kind of assessments EMLC does and how important they are), and goal-setting.
The approaches to goal-setting were very interesting. One was a basic approach, where you ask the person what they would like to be able to do now (help their children with their homework, for example, or use American healthcare) and then you break that large goal down into smaller pieces that are easy to measure. The other goal-setting approach was based on roles. You ask the person what they would like to change about their work life, their family life, their community life, and their personal life, and from those you work out some long-term and short-term goals.
It was a little distressing to note the homogenity of the volunteers. I am the youngest volunteer by far - most of the volunteers are retirees. All but one were WASPs, and all but two were female. I wonder if this has to do with a Maslovian hierarchy of needs - it takes privilege to be able to do volunteering - or confidence coming from a certain level of education - maybe some of the more diverse folks think you have to be really educated to teach others. There also seem to be a lot of people wearing crosses and talking about Good Works.
I would strongly recommend Eastern Massachusetts Literacy Council to volunteer through. They're very dedicated, and they have their shit together. I'm very impressed by them. After the orientation, I looked through a list of Boston literacy groups, and discovered that EMLC is one of the few that takes volunteers and one of the only that offers free training. Yup. Most of the literacy groups in the area that ARE taking volunteers don't train them, you're just thrown in the water. I guess you would probably have to have a teaching background already for that to work.
Anyhow, EMLC also very good about pointing people towards more resources. Apparently, those who want to can be given additional training to train tutors themselves, to do standardized assessments for the state, to work with students with learning disabilities, to help students with immigration issues... I'm not sure how far I'm going to go with it, but it's really awesome.
I am going to try to write at least a little about this class when it happens, because I think it might be interesting or inspiring to people.
The teacher is really dynamic. She keeps things moving quickly. I don't find myself wanting to knit or make lists or write poems, which is what I do in boring classes or department meetings.
In our first class, she covered some of the facts that were covered in orientation - a few folks were in the class who hadn't been in orientation. It was good to have a review. The rest of the class, she talked about experiental learning, some theories about how adults learn differently from kids, assessments (how you assess where your learner is, as well as the kind of assessments EMLC does and how important they are), and goal-setting.
The approaches to goal-setting were very interesting. One was a basic approach, where you ask the person what they would like to be able to do now (help their children with their homework, for example, or use American healthcare) and then you break that large goal down into smaller pieces that are easy to measure. The other goal-setting approach was based on roles. You ask the person what they would like to change about their work life, their family life, their community life, and their personal life, and from those you work out some long-term and short-term goals.
It was a little distressing to note the homogenity of the volunteers. I am the youngest volunteer by far - most of the volunteers are retirees. All but one were WASPs, and all but two were female. I wonder if this has to do with a Maslovian hierarchy of needs - it takes privilege to be able to do volunteering - or confidence coming from a certain level of education - maybe some of the more diverse folks think you have to be really educated to teach others. There also seem to be a lot of people wearing crosses and talking about Good Works.
I would strongly recommend Eastern Massachusetts Literacy Council to volunteer through. They're very dedicated, and they have their shit together. I'm very impressed by them. After the orientation, I looked through a list of Boston literacy groups, and discovered that EMLC is one of the few that takes volunteers and one of the only that offers free training. Yup. Most of the literacy groups in the area that ARE taking volunteers don't train them, you're just thrown in the water. I guess you would probably have to have a teaching background already for that to work.
Anyhow, EMLC also very good about pointing people towards more resources. Apparently, those who want to can be given additional training to train tutors themselves, to do standardized assessments for the state, to work with students with learning disabilities, to help students with immigration issues... I'm not sure how far I'm going to go with it, but it's really awesome.
