Literacy Volunteers of America, Essex & Passaic Counties, NJ Inc.

April 2018

Volume 6, Issue 4

The Insider

The Insider, the monthly newsletter of LVA, Essex & Passaic Counties, will keep you in the loop on all of the organization’s upcoming events.

Antonio Brugnoli, the education manager for Project Literacy of Greater Bergen County, offered some useful ideas and activities for conversation groups in a workshop this month.

Literacy Volunteers of America Essex & Passaic Counties

90 Broad Street, 2nd Floor, Bloomfield, NJ 07003
(973) 566-6200, ext. 217 or 225

195 Gregory Avenue, 2nd Floor, Passaic, NJ 07055
(973) 470-0039

Cristhian Barcelos      -Executive Director
                                           [email protected]
Russell Ben Ali         -Recruitment & Training Coordinator
                         [email protected]
Jorge Chavez               -Data Processing Coordinator
                                           [email protected]
Debbie Graham           -Education Coordinator
                                           [email protected]
Mary O’Connor          -Trainer & Tutor Support Specialist
                                           [email protected]
Marisol Ramirez          -Student Coordinator
                                           [email protected]

Greetings LVA Family,

Here’s a unique opportunity for anyone interested in learning more about using ‘sequential art’ to help develop literacy skills. Dr. Erik Jacobson, a Montclair State University professor and former president of the New Jersey Association for Lifelong Learning, will offer a free mini-conference on the use of graphic novels, comics, and manga in the classroom. The event takes place at Montclair State University on Saturday, May 19, from 1-5 pm.

More info: https://events.time.ly/gfp1f0l?event=9141781
Pre-registration required at: http://bit.ly/2pihyu3

The Center for Law and Public Policy (CLASP) and other organizations that advocate for children and families, are taking a position against a citizenship question scheduled to appear on 2020 census forms. The organization states that the question, which will ask residents if they are U.S. citizens, will inevitably lead to an undercount of poor, immigrant, and minority children, a group that has historically been underrepresented by the census, which counts U.S. residents every 10 years. You can read CLASP’s position on the census question here: https://bit.ly/2GX0KRO

We had the good fortune of learning from two excellent tutor support workshop presenters this month: Mary O’Connor, LVA’s tutor support specialist, on “Getting Started With Your Students,” and Antonio Brugnoli, education manager for Project Literacy of Greater Bergen County, on “Activities for English Conversation Groups.” Thank you to both.

The tutor support group will meet Tuesday, April 24th, 12:30-2:00 pm, at Park United Methodist Church, 12 Park St, in Bloomfield.

In the News

To view the following stories, copy and paste the highlighted website into an internet search bar.

‘How are 1 in 10 people living in the same county as Penn State ‘functionally illiterate’? Centre Daily Times
https://goo.gl/Dn31YA

‘Reading, Writing Without Computer Proficiency is Illiteracy,’ UNESCO. https://bit.ly/2GRm3TI

‘How hard is it to learn to write by hand as an adult?’
The Guardian. https://bit.ly/2JAnurw

‘English proficiency has significant impact on home ownership,’ The Urban Institute. https://bit.ly/2uF5N6G

Edilma, a former professor of business in her native Colombia, brings a passion for learning and a gift of humor to her tutoring sessions.

Tutor Support Workshop

"Strategies for Teaching Decoding and Word Analysis Skills to Adult Literacy Students - Part 2," with Nora Devine
Bloomfield Public Library
90 Broad Street, 2nd Floor Boardroom
Bloomfield, NJ 07003
Monday, May 7, 2018, 1:00-2:30 pm

"Teaching Vocabulary with Pictures," with Mary Kao
Bloomfield Public Library
90 Broad Street, 2nd Floor Boardroom
Bloomfield, NJ 07003
Tuesday, June 5, 2018, 1:00-2:30 pm

Tutor Training Workshops

Park United Methodist Church
By Carolyn Van Doren
12 Park Street, Mission House
Bloomfield, NJ 07003
Mondays & Wednesdays, 12:00–3:00 pm
April 23, 25, 30, May 2, 7, & 9, 2018

Getting to Know Us
Edilma, LVA student
By Ellen Rooney Martin

If you think business teachers are mundane, predictable, or occasionally dull, you likely never met Professor Edilma. It’s normal for this Colombian native to burst into a classroom with both barrels blaring, her demeanor full of energy, humor, and totally unscripted.

It’s possible that the wit she’s come to be known for came from years of jostling with siblings, of which there was no shortage in her family of five brothers and four sisters. Of them all, she is the only one who went to college, and she earned a degree in business from the University of Medellin. She didn't stop there either. She traveled to the nation’s capital, Bogota, and earned a Master's Degree in Business.

Edilma became a professor and taught business for 15 years, encouraging students along the way to focus on critical thinking rather than the tedious memorization of pages from their textbooks. She worked in business as well taught it, managing a funeral home for 16 years, after working her way up from secretary.

She eventually made her way to the U.S. and married. It was her husband who persuaded her to enroll in literacy classes in 2014.

“LVA changed my life a lot because I found the opportunity to have beautiful teachers,” Edilma said. “They have varied backgrounds. It’s amazing.”

Edilma spends eight hours a week with her tutors.

“She’s very enthusiastic,” said Joanne Marren, one of Edilma’s tutors. “She basically wants to know everything. She often asks me questions that I don’t have an answer for.”

From pronunciation to grammar, Edilma wants to understand everything perfectly, Joanne said. “She’s really a special student.” Joanne added. And she definitely has a sense of humor. She laughs all the time.”

Edilma also studies daily on her own and, overall, feels pretty good about her progress. “I love it,” she said in a moment of reflection, a break in an interview consumed with smiles, comedic yarns, and laughter. “I am living my dream.”

Literacy opens a wide door to life. Help us keep that door open with your donation!

Thanks in large part to you, we are able to aid hundreds of students each year. Please continue your efforts to improve the lives of others by giving the gift of literacy. You can contribute by mailing us a check or through our website @:

http://www.lvaep.org/donate.html

“How learning to read helped this woman open her own restaurant,” The Advertiser

By Megan Wyatt, [email protected]

One of the newest restaurants in Lafayette is far from fancy.

It's inside of an old 1988 motorhome in a gas station parking lot on University Avenue. But in that repurposed RV, you'll find Sandra Matheson, whose unassuming eats are well worth the calories and whose inspirational story proves it's never too late to pursue your dream.

'I was so angry for so long'

Matheson, 55, struggled with anger and shame for much of her life. She spent decades in school — both as a student and as an employee — and didn't know how to read or write. Still, Matheson somehow made it to 12th grade in New Orleans.

Teachers and administrators turned a blind eye to her academic struggles, even having other students take tests for her so she could continue playing sports, according to Matheson. "They seen I had a problem, and they seen I had a struggle, but they wanted me to run track, play basketball, do all these things," she says. "And I didn't realize it at the time, but they were cheating me out of an education. And I was so angry for so long."

She held onto that anger through the years, especially as a single mom raising three children on modest paychecks from the same school system she felt had failed her. Matheson struggled in the school cafeteria where she worked. But she wasn't alone. "There were a lot of us who didn't know those menus — who couldn't read those menus," Matheson says. "It's embarrassing. But I'd bring my menu home. I'd make a copy of it and study that menu and get it down pat. It’s embarrassing."

For complete story: https://bit.ly/2vbtYtA

Student Resources

Learning a new culture is more than studying a language. Tutoring is more than learning techniques. Our ‘Resources’ page covers everything from legal matters, health care, & scholarships for immigrants, to professional development for tutors. Give us a look @:

http://www.lvaep.org/students.html

Getting to Know Us
Mary Kao, LVA tutor

It struck painfully close to home for Mary Kao, when an elderly Egyptian woman pleaded with her for help in learning English.

It reminded Mary of her own mother, who could speak Ningbo, the dialect of her native region of China, and English, Hindi, and Urdu, the languages of India, where she’d raised Mary.
But her mother couldn’t read or write in any language because she was pulled out of school early by her father.

“He figured a girl in the Chinese transition should marry, become a good wife, be a good cook, know how to sew, and be a good homemaker,” Mary said of her maternal grandfather. “I’m so for literacy because my mother was denied an education by her parents, who said it was not necessary for a girl to study in school. Life was tough for her because she was illiterate.”

As for the Egyptian woman, a client in Mary’s hairstyling trade, she also found life harsh in a country where she was functionally illiterate. Mary found help for the woman at LVA Essex & Passaic Counties, which had an office at Seton Hall University.

That was 2001. Since then, Mary has gone on to become an advocate for adult literacy. She’s been an LVA tutor for 17 years, one of our longest serving volunteers, and was once named LVA Educator of the Year. She’s a trainer who coaches beginning tutors and even recruits a few. And she’s a workshop presenter with a specialty in teaching literacy through photographs. In workshops, she emphasizes that tutoring needn’t be costly and shows tutors how she accesses thousands of photos, and laminates materials, for a few dollars a year through the Learning Resource Center in East Orange, a professional development center run by the state.

In her spare time, Mary teaches origami, the Japanese art of paper folding, which she learned as a child.

Her tutoring is extremely visual, and, at 75 years young, she has the enthusiasm of a new trainee. “I found that being a tutor has helped me become more aware of language, of writing, and how to express myself,” she said. “I love it. I love it.”