Adult Learning & Literacy Program
at the Cesar Chavez Library
at the Cesar Chavez Library
When I started my Service Learning course and looked at the list of places where I could complete my service hours, the Adult Learning & Literacy Program at the Cesar Chavez Library in Salinas caught my attention. I consider myself an adult learner, because when I had just arrived from Mexico, I had to revalidate my studies to obtain a GED certificate and in order to do so, I had to attend classes with other adults who resumed their studies after a while. In these classes I observed that some students had difficulty with some subjects, and I decided to help them by offering other ways of learning. When I found out about the Library program, I thought it would be a good way to resume the support I gave to my GED classmates and offer it to more people, but this time with all my attention directed to the students.
In my tutoring, I helped in two of the classes offered by the program, computer classes for beginners and citizenship classes in English and Spanish. In the citizenship classes, I was in charge of conducting mock interviews, individual or in groups. They were attended entirely by Hispanics, all with different backgrounds, but with similar life histories, since we belong to the migrant community from the central valley of California. The students in the English classes made me reflect and change my attitude towards them, because at first I mistakenly assumed that they spoke English or that they had some knowledge of the language to prepare for citizenship in English. However, I met many people who were learning English at the same time they were doing the citizenship class. I even met a couple of students who were also learning to read and write in Spanish.This experience made me reflect on age discrimination. In class, I learned about this type of discrimination, and how it affects people in my community. Thanks to the fact that I realized my mistake, I changed and improved my teaching techniques without assuming anything from my students or infantilizing my interactions with them, and applied the same changes to my other classes. In addition to age discrimination, I also learned about the need for bilingualism in my community and how important the presence of Spanish is in programs like these. Although the computer class was bilingual, 95% of the attendees only spoke Spanish, which is why the peculiarity occurred that the class was taught mostly in Spanish and then translated into English. As with some of my peers' service sites, I've found that members of my migrant community love to participate in social activities like these classes and programs, but often don't attend them because they are mostly taught in English. Thanks to this experience, I am more aware of the problems that affect my community and seeing the change I promoted in my students encouraged me to continue on my path to become an educator.
In my tutoring, I helped in two of the classes offered by the program, computer classes for beginners and citizenship classes in English and Spanish. In the citizenship classes, I was in charge of conducting mock interviews, individual or in groups. They were attended entirely by Hispanics, all with different backgrounds, but with similar life histories, since we belong to the migrant community from the central valley of California. The students in the English classes made me reflect and change my attitude towards them, because at first I mistakenly assumed that they spoke English or that they had some knowledge of the language to prepare for citizenship in English. However, I met many people who were learning English at the same time they were doing the citizenship class. I even met a couple of students who were also learning to read and write in Spanish.This experience made me reflect on age discrimination. In class, I learned about this type of discrimination, and how it affects people in my community. Thanks to the fact that I realized my mistake, I changed and improved my teaching techniques without assuming anything from my students or infantilizing my interactions with them, and applied the same changes to my other classes. In addition to age discrimination, I also learned about the need for bilingualism in my community and how important the presence of Spanish is in programs like these. Although the computer class was bilingual, 95% of the attendees only spoke Spanish, which is why the peculiarity occurred that the class was taught mostly in Spanish and then translated into English. As with some of my peers' service sites, I've found that members of my migrant community love to participate in social activities like these classes and programs, but often don't attend them because they are mostly taught in English. Thanks to this experience, I am more aware of the problems that affect my community and seeing the change I promoted in my students encouraged me to continue on my path to become an educator.