Education From One Community to Another

I was going to post this week about the challenges of trying to teach my students the words to the song "Cielito Lindo" but my most interesting educational experience of the week came at a place outside Danville. One of our Tutorpedia's tutors invited many of us to join her at the EastLake YMCA in Oakland to tutor some of the students in an after school program. Since I live in Oakland and am always up for a tutoring opportunity, I planned to go.

I arrived at the facility on 45th Ave a little after 6 pm. Still feeling a little fresh after a full day of teaching, I entered the building to find the students watching a documentary about what I think was the perception of the Latino Community in different parts of the country. I listened as one of the adults lead a discussion about what the students had just seen. Many were upset about what they'd seen and heard in the video. As the discussion came to an end, the leader introduced our founder and the other tutors who had shown up to help out. I became a little nervous about what the students would think when I told them that I taught Spanish at a private school out in the suburbs but as it turned out, none seemed to care much either way.

The other tutors and I got to work. I met a high school aged girl and began to help her with her algebra homework. She was behind in class so we spent the entire hour and a half doing the problems she hadn't yet completed. As I looked around I saw students engaged in their work. One boy was studying for what sounded like a history midterm while other students were working on poetry. Everyone seemed to be getting along and focused on the task at hand.

It was a complete eye-opener for me. While nearly all of my students are white, none of the students at this facility were. While many of my students probably take their education for granted, these students seemed to appreciate the fact that we were there. That is not to say that my junior high students aren't appreciative or that the students at the YMCA couldn't have done just fine without the tutors. It's just that the dynamic was different.

There is a great disparity among educational opportunities when you compare two communities like Oakland and Danville. My students have significantly more resources and attention but as I found out while I was working with the students at the Y, all of them were just as eager to learn. Many of my students in Danville are missing assignments just like the girl I was helping at the Y. The difference now is that she is all caught up.

I hope to go to many more of these sessions in the future. Aside from the tutoring, I hope the students at the program know how much I'm willing to form relationships with them and give them that guidance they need. If nothing else, it will give me an opportunity to see how education is practiced across communities.