LEARNING TOGETHER – A BEAUTIFUL EXPERIENCE
WASHINGTON, D.C. — November 25, 2018 — A few weeks ago I wrote about my experience training as a literacy mentor with AARP’s Experience Corps here in Washington, DC. A group of about 30 senior citizen volunteers trained at AARP’s headquarters on 6th and E streets for about a month. The goal was to place us in elementary schools around the District to tutor three to five-year olds in literacy fluency – to take on the children who may be lagging behind the rest of the class. My assignment is at Van Ness Elementary School in SE DC, which is quite convenient as it is only about 11 blocks from home, and I can walk there and back quite easily. I have eight children in total, divided into two groups of three, with the remaining two children having one on one tutoring.
At first I was a little nervous. I have not worked with children before, other than my own two who are now adults in their 30s. Raising them was not without some difficulties, as when my son was about eight years old both he and I were diagnosed as having ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). I am eternally grateful to the late Dr. Matthew Rose for his help and understanding, and also Rochelle Basden, who worked with him. I have learned a lot over the years about children with this problem, and perhaps that has helped me to be more patient, not only with other people’s children and my own, but with myself. So despite my initial trepidation, I soon found the eight wriggly, giggly girls and boys were not really so hard to work with.
I have now been going twice a week to the school since the beginning of October. Each session with the groups or individual children takes 30 minutes, so I am tutoring for two hours in all. We play games to identify syllables and sounds, such as clapping for each syllable, and alphabet bingo. There is also a book to read, and the children are taught the concepts of print. This entails identifying the cover and spine of the book, and the elements on the cover – the author, illustrator and title – and what the functions of these are. The children are also asked to describe what they see in the illustrations and what these might tell us about the story. Then I read them the story and we talk about each page and the illustrations on it.
Before each session begins, the children are usually excited to see me, so we spend a couple of minutes catching up on what they have done since I last saw them, and, if necessary, a little jumping up and down, leg and arm shaking “to get their wiggles out”. Most of them don’t “get their wiggles out” completely, so I have to deal with a lot of giggling and wriggling throughout the session. But one little girl seems to be getting really keen on learning her alphabet and word games.
At first I was rather worried about her, as her attention wandered quite a bit. She is one of the children I have one on one, and seemed to really be having difficulty learning her ABCs. Something must have happened about three sessions ago. When I go to get her from her class, she runs to me, grabs my hand and smiles happily up at me as we walk down the corridor to our desk and chairs in the quiet corner. Two sessions ago she was not feeling very well, all stuffed up with a cold and coughing every few minutes. I suggested she might like to go back to class where the other children were having their after lunch nap. Although she wasn’t looking too happy that day, she shook her head and said, “No, Miss Elisabeth, I want to stay with you.”
It was last Monday that I realised that I was really getting through to her. We were going through the alphabet, and any letter that she could not identify she automatically called W. Patiently I went over the 26 letters with her twice, and she began to get more and more of them right. Then her teacher came and asked her if she would like to rejoin the class for a few minutes, as one of the children had brought some birthday cupcakes. Not wanting her to miss out, I encouraged her to go. But no! She shook her head firmly and told her teacher she didn’t want a cupcake, she wanted to stay with Miss Elisabeth! Absolutely nothing we said to her would change her mind. So she stayed, and we continued with our word games, and read our book.
I think that was one of the most precious moments I have experienced in a very long time. I have been dealing with some personal stress for quite a while, but that little girl made my day, my week, my whole year. Here was someone who absolutely appreciated me, and what I am doing for her is really much bigger than everything else, and it may mean her being successful in the future, encourage her to learn, graduate high school – even go to college and get a degree. The sparkle in her eyes and her delighted smile – with her two missing front teeth – gave me so much pleasure, such a feeling of satisfaction, and the knowledge that I was doing something really, really good. And after all, what four year old would rather play word games over eating a cupcake!
After our session she did go and get her cupcake. She was also smiling much more than I have ever seen her smile before. She obviously had a great sense of achievement. When I told her I would see her next Monday, as this week is Thanksgiving and school is closed for a few days, she squeezed my hand and nodded happily. I know I must give all the children equal attention, but I am really looking forward to seeing this little girl most of all.
A few hours a week can make all the difference to children who are struggling to keep up academically. It can also make a huge difference to senior citizens who feel like they have been “put out to pasture”. The AARP Experience Corps program has shown that there are health benefits for the seniors who take part, as well as the feeling that they are still making a useful contribution to society. It could be a wonderful program in all schools if adopted in The Bahamas. In fact, the seniors’ contribution helping young children in this way could have life changing, positive effects – reducing illiteracy, poverty, bad behaviour, crime, and generally making life “Better in The Bahamas”.
