5/2/2019 The MathemagicianIf you ask someone what their least favorite subject was in school, you often hear “math” given as the answer. If you dig further and ask why, you might be told that math was “too difficult,” “too confusing,” or “too scary.” Tutor Angie Woo would disagree: “It’s a very logical, step by step process. She smiles and says, “I just try and show [the students] that it’s not a scary thing.” Whatever Angie is doing to convince students that math isn’t scary is working admirably. Over the last ten months that Angie has been with the Brunner Literacy Center, she’s earned herself the title of “Mathemagician.” But when you mention that term, Angie laughs in a self-effacing way. “This is what I was meant to do,” she says. “I really believe that.” Being able to reach students in an often-loathed subject isn’t easy, but for Angie, her passion for the subject makes a difference. “I’ve always loved math,” the former math teacher says. Before coming to the BLC, Angie taught seventh and eighth grade, pre-algebra and algebra, and she’s skilled in Geometry, too. She also uses those math skills in her current job, where she prepares students for the GED; it’s a role that also seems to be a calling for her. Of both her job and her volunteer work she says, “I like the fact that I can help [students] get a second chance. I think that’s the important thing. Once they get out with a GED, doors open. They have so many more chances, so many more opportunities when they get out with a GED. So hopefully, they can get past their past and move onto the next step of their life. I like seeing what comes next.” When asked what drew her specifically to the BLC she says, “I always look for some place that I can make a difference. I think that’s why I went into teaching; that’s why I was drawn to GED in the first place." It’s people like Angie who make the BLC so special. We’re hoping she works her magic for many years to come.
1 Comment
4/18/2019 More Than ReadingBrunner Literacy Center and Story Chain are partnering at the Day Reporting Center (DRC) to bring the joy of reading to inmates and their children. Story Chain, a non-profit organization started by Jonathan Platt in 2014 and fueled by volunteers, recognizes the importance of reading to children to encourage literacy success. After all, cultivating a love of books can change a parent and child forever. In our pilot collaboration, which focuses on mothers, incarcerated women find pleasure in choosing books, learning reading techniques, and looking forward to professionally recording stories to share with their sons and daughters. As one participant said, “Looking at the pictures in these books and thinking about them, imagining the voices of the characters and how I will read to my children makes me dream about reading to them in person. I am already making plans.” Thanks to the funders of Story Chain, each household will receive the mother’s recording on a quality MP3 player the children can listen to whenever they wish, along with copies of the books she has chosen to share. Story Chain hopes to make another lifelong literacy connection for children by meeting them at their local library, where they will give them the recording and books. The partnership between Brunner Literacy Center and Story Chain is a natural fit that brings the pleasure of reading to both parents and children, building a bridge of love during their absence from each other. Hopefully, it also creates a lifelong love of books and instills curiosity in the children who receive the unique gift of their parent’s voice, no matter where they are. To learn more about the Brunner Literacy Center, please visit our website or Facebook page. More information about Story Chain can be found on their Facebook page. “There’s absolutely no sense in sitting still,” Jeanne Talmadge says. That seems to be a motto she’s applied to her entire life. A former stay-at-home mother to six kids--a role that never lends itself well to sitting still--she went on to serve as a paralegal for twenty years once her children were grown. That family has blossomed to include thirteen grandchildren and twenty-nine great grandchildren. But family isn’t the only important thing to Jeanne. Community service holds a very dear place in her heart. She’s a parishioner of Precious Blood Parish, an involved member of Saint Vincent de Paul, and teaches Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) to children. With that busy schedule, one might ask who or what serves as an inspiration for doing what she’s doing, whether with the Brunner Literacy Center or other organizations. Jeanne says, “I just . . . that’s what I do. But my biggest inspiration when I was growing up was my granddad. He was just a pretty amazing Catholic, and I have a special place for him . . . I think my whole family, my grandmother, my father--they all volunteered for different positions and things. It just goes with the territory.” But for someone who doesn’t like to sit still, finding the time to fit everything into an already-full schedule can be difficult. Many years ago, the Miami Valley Literacy Council presented a literacy program that Jeanne attended, and she longed to get involved. However, “I was up to my ears at that point and wasn’t able to so,” she says. “When they said this [the BLC] was coming, I said, definitely, I want to be a part of it. And I’ve been here pretty much from the beginning.” Almost seven and a half years later, and Jeanne has found her way into the hearts of the center on Salem Avenue and the Day Reporting Center. She tutors for three hours every Monday at the DRC and then for one hour on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at the Salem site. . When tutoring, Jeanne spends most of her time with non-native English speakers (ESOL students), something she finds funny because she “didn’t expect it.” Furthermore, she believes that her role as an ESOL tutor “sort of just evolved.” However, Jeanne tutors in all different areas. “I tutor more comfortably in English and history and was never was much at math, but I know it well enough to be able to at least do the basics. At the Day Reporting Center, I’ll be working with people that are not ready for GED math, but you know, need the basics and things, so I do all the different areas.” Part of Jeanne’s success as a tutor is most likely due to the experiences she’s collected in life when she’s not sitting still, something she seems to come by honestly. She was born in New York City, in the Bronx, but grew up all over the United States and England, thanks to her dad, who served in the Air Force. “I went to an English boarding school taught by French nuns,” she says. “It was fascinating. My gym class over there was to learn how to ride a horse!” After spending three years in England, the family moved back to the states, crossing paths with the Dayton area and Wright-Patt Air Force Base several times. While she attended one year at the former Julienne High School, Jeanne graduated from a school in Louisiana: “My dad got out of the service and went to where his home was. . . He started his anesthesia practice in Louisiana, so I went to and graduated from high school there.” She then enrolled at Webster College in St. Louis, where she double majored in History and English and met her husband, Dick. After marrying and having children, Jeanne continued the habit of traveling with her own family. “We camped all over this country. I can’t think of places we didn’t go. And then we bought a small farm here in the Dayton area, out in Jefferson Township, and that sort of stopped the camping and traveling, but the kids got into 4H . . . They called it McDonald’s farm--we had every animal--and I used to milk a cow before I got up to go to work.” Along with raising animals, Jeanne and her husband grew vegetables. “We did a lot of gardening,” she said. “My husband was just a fanatic with gardening. He did a lot of vegetables.” Jeanne has called the Dayton area home now for over sixty years, having spent most of those with Dick, who passed away four years ago. Despite her tendency to keep moving, Jeanne stops for what she deems important, and of course, literacy is on that list. Literacy is “probably the key to making a success of life. And I just feel like it’s something I have been blessed with--my parents were college graduates; of the five kids, we all have careers that have taken an education. I can see the value of it, just basically in the fact that if you don’t have it you struggle. And as I say, the number of people in poverty that I see--[literacy] is the key that is going to help them get out of it.” Jeanne’s enthusiasm about literacy and tutoring can be infectious, and she hopes that her words will inspire other tutors to join the team. “You can turn back to the number of GEDs that have been given, to the number of people that have gotten citizenship with our help,” Jeanne says. “We are effective and that in itself should be encouragement to come. And, the fact that anybody can do this. It’s not something you have to have a teaching degree to do or that kind of thing. If you have the inspiration to get in and teach, if you taught your own kids, you can probably do it.” But all tutors need willing and eager students, and Jeanne recognizes that it can be difficult to reach out and ask for help. Her belief? “Anyone can improve,” she says. “You may be a bad reader or not be able to read at all. But there’s always a place to start. It’s much simpler to come in here and to work one-on-one with somebody that isn’t intimidating, that isn’t going to stand up there with a ruler. It’s much easier to deal one-on-one, and you can learn so much. Even if you don’t learn what you think you’re going to learn, you can learn a lot.” Jeanne has embraced a lifetime of learning, but she isn’t finished yet. “You know, I will be seventy-nine next month. [Laughs] I still have a lot to do.” Sitting still isn’t one of them. For Marilyn Klaben, connections are key. “All through my teaching life I had to make connections,” Marilyn tells us. “Once I worked with this program called Interrelated Arts, where I met with a classroom teacher once a week and she told me what she was teaching, and I had to connect that with theater. So I had a week to get my lesson plans together for all these different grade levels, connecting to if they were studying animal habitats, Helen Keller, or the Civil War; I had to connect it to theater. So my mind works in that way to make connections between things, and I love that kind of creative work. So actually tutoring is a creative challenge for me, which I really enjoy.” A theater teacher by trade, Marilyn has tutored with the Brunner Literacy Center for more than two years, primarily working with adult students who are learning English as a second or third language. When Marilyn began tutoring with the BLC, she worked with a young man whose native language was Spanish; now she works with a native Vietnamese speaker. This multicultural experience is a natural fit for Marilyn. “I mean, it’s so interesting,” she says, “the cultural exchange and how different it is here, the things he buys at the grocery to make his Vietnamese dishes…” The mutual learning process helps build relationships between tutors and students, and Marilyn gets joy from all of it, especially seeing her students’ progress as they gain confidence in expressing themselves. “I love learning about their country. I love learning about their family and what brought them here, how they’re making ends meet,” Marilyn explains. “Sometimes we go over goals they have, and [my current student’s] main goal is getting his wife and child here so they can be together. But I think learning about the countries, learning about the person themself, and finding out about another culture, it’s just rewarding as you see progress, as slow as it might be. When you see progress or you see them remember something, or they can string together a sentence, it’s very meaningful. It just makes you feel good.” Marilyn and her family are travelers themselves. While Marilyn grew up in Dayton, she has lived in New York City; Washington, DC; and St. Paul, Minnesota. Her children live in New York City, Chicago, and Israel. The Klabens love to travel, and Marilyn is proud to call Dayton her home. Here in Dayton, Marilyn served as the Education Director for Human Race Theater for 27 years. She has taught at Wright State University, Wittenberg University, area elementary schools and high schools, and MUSE Machine. Marilyn and her husband, Larry, even established TEDxDayton, a yearly event featuring speakers and performers, in 2013. “Our son was involved in it at University of Michigan and we thought it was so cool, and that was our first experience with it,” Marilyn says. “So we tried to bring it to Dayton, and that was successful. You know, we didn’t know if it would work here, but everybody was right behind us.” That may be a bit of an understatement. In fact, tickets for TEDxDayton have sold out every year it has been held, and the event continues to wide acclaim. While Marilyn initially tutored at the BLC on Salem Avenue, today she prefers to take advantage of the BLC’s remote tutoring option, which allows tutors and students to work together off-site, in public locations such as coffee shops and libraries. Marilyn and her current student meet twice a week at the Main Library in downtown Dayton. One thing Marilyn appreciates about volunteering with the BLC is getting to set her own schedule, which lets her and her student adjust their meeting times as needed and gives her and her husband the opportunity to visit with their children. “We travel a lot now, and that’s why doing this kind of tutoring, volunteer work is very great, because it allows for flexibility,” Marilyn tells us. Her student, she says, “always understands. It doesn’t seem to interrupt the flow. It’s great, and I mean, [the library] is obviously convenient for me, and I think it’s closer to [my student’s] house than the Brunner Literacy Center is, so I think that’s how we originally decided on it. It’s so light and bright, and safe, you know?” Reserving a room, too, is a simple and painless process for remote tutors, and the library staff are always ready to help. “It’s so easy to reserve a spot,” says Marilyn. “You just go up to the front desk, and all the staff people here are so wonderful and helpful, and like three people at once are like, ‘Can I help you?’ So I go up to one of them and ask, ‘Could I reserve this spot for the next month for [specific days and times]?’ And they’re like, ‘Sure! Show me your library card, and we’ll get it all set up.’ And it’s very easy. It’s so easy for the tutor to do themselves.” In addition to tutoring, Marilyn believes in supporting the BLC financially. “It’s meaningful to my husband and I to be able to give to places that we think are doing really good work and have a really strong mission,” she says. “The whole Center’s doing great work, and it’s really worthwhile. It’s really important in our community.” Marilyn has certainly left her mark on the city she loves, and she continues to make Dayton a better place. She finds joy in return, whether it’s seeing her current students advancing toward their goals or running into former students. “It’s always so great when I run into one of my students… at Dorothy Lane Market, here at the library… I mean, just everywhere,” Marilyn says with a smile. “They’re everywhere. And it just makes me feel good to be living in the town that I have spent so much time in and running into former students. And after a career of teaching to classrooms and theaters full of students, Marilyn says she is very happy with the individual nature of BLC tutoring. “I really like the one-to-one experience rather than tutoring a big class of students. You know, I’ve done that all my life, and so I really like just working one-to-one,” Marilyn explains. “And I think just the discovery process of all the ways you can find to teach them English or to help them read, it’s just meaningful. And in terms of our whole world, it helps with another mission of welcoming these people from other countries, who might feel misplaced and displaced, welcoming them to our country and to our little microcosm of Dayton, Ohio, you know, to make them feel welcome here. Whether they’re sharing recipes for dumplings, or whether I’m sharing the foods that we eat in America, sharing those kind of things with another culture, I think, just… We’re richer for the experience of working with these other cultures and other people and welcoming them to Dayton. Without a doubt, the BLC is richer for the dedication of volunteer tutors like Marilyn. Terri Gilbert is a consummate teacher. Pure passion for education pulses in her every word, and the most wonderful thing is that Terri genuinely enjoys her work. Her language is always positive, always oriented toward growth and human connection. No matter where her life has taken her or what employment she has held, Terri has found something to celebrate in all of it. Originally from Cincinnati, Terri attended college in Florida before returning to Ohio. Upon graduating from Rollins College with dual degrees in Education and French, Terri wanted to become a Dean of Students at a university, and she worked at the University of Dayton for some time as the Assistant Residence Director in the Marycrest dormitory. After she married her husband, Jim, Terri figured that living in a student residence hall didn’t really fit into her life; that’s when she decided to use her teaching degree. Terri taught French at the junior high level for a few years (“I really loved it,” says Terri), then became a guidance counselor at the same school and the nearby high school (“I liked it a lot!” she exclaims). Once she and Jim started their family, Terri pulled back from working full-time and took a job in Outpatient Substance Abuse Prevention, working with teenagers with mental health and addiction concerns, and then Terri added teaching at UD part-time to her schedule (“And that was good too!” Terri adds). Later Terri became the Substance Abuse Prevention Coordinator for Oakwood schools, which she followed by working as the Family Resource Coordinator for a preschool in West Carrollton. “So as you can see it’s kind of a path that goes like this,” Terri says with a grin as she traces a crooked line in the air with the side of her hand. “So now I’ve done college, I’ve done high school, I’ve done junior high, and now I’ve got 3-5-year-olds. But, can I tell you, it was my favorite job of my whole life?” Why? For that answer, I’ll let Terri tell you in her own words.
Terri’s desire to improve people’s lives is evident at every moment in her personal history. She was often inspired by family members who were educators, including her grandmother, a mother of seven, who taught and became a school principal. Then there was her aunt, one of those seven children, who was a professor at UD for decades and founded the nursery school that would become The Bombeck Center. On top of that, all four sisters in Terri’s generation of her family are educators too.
That said, Terri knows you don’t have to have an education background to volunteer at the BLC. Her advice for prospective volunteers is simply, “Do it! Do it! This is a great place to volunteer. Some people [I’ve talked to] are afraid that they wouldn’t know enough about how to do it, and I said, ‘Oh, no, no! You would; I promise you, you would.’ And I feel that there is support here. I feel like there are people to talk to that could offer advice, suggestions, if someone was worried about being good at it.” And Terri finds that that sense of support is also what leads to student success here at the BLC. Basing her opinion on her former BLC students’ experiences elsewhere, Terri says that a strength of the BLC’s model is the individual attention that students get here. “They would be in classes,” Terri explains, “and all of the students in the classes would be at different levels, and they would just forge onward. It was leaving some of the people that I had been working with behind. And so being able to work one-on-one with someone at their level, change it up whenever you need to, just being able to be that flexible is one of the things that I like here. Also the respect that people are shown when they come here. It’s just… It’s safe.” So why has Terri turned her sights on adult literacy for the past several years? “Because it’s empowering,” she says. “When I was sitting on the couch with that woman that said, ‘I can’t read,’ it hit me. It just hit me that she had spent her whole life pretending that she could do something she couldn’t do. So the shame that goes with not having that skill kept her isolated from peers, other parents… I mean, she was a great mom! A great mom! But if you looked at it from the outside, the signals could have been read so wrong that she just wasn’t gonna come in and hang out. We used to ask the mothers, ‘Come on in and do this. You can do this, and you can do that.’ She would not have come in up to that point, just wouldn’t have, because what if we had asked her to read something when she was in there? And then the whole shame thing would kick in, so I just, I can remember her face. I can remember that.” We think it’s safe to say that Terri has left her own mark on the people she has worked with and the students she has taught. Her joy and strength of conviction leave an impression not soon forgotten, and the long-term effects of her work will ripple out for years to come. |
Archives
May 2019
Categories
All
|