Are you the next AL­TA vol­un­teer? Do you have time to do mean­ing­ful work that would make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence in some­one’s life? Find your place at AL­TA, whether as a tu­tor, Read­ing Cir­cle guide, or as part of our Read­ings Un­der the Trees event team.

Read on to find out more about AL­TA Read­ing Cir­cles from vol­un­teer tu­tor turned Read­ing Cir­cle guide Je­an­don Bartholomew. At NALIS Port-of-Spain, he reads with Lev­el 3 stu­dents who are now flu­ent read­ers.

Read­ing, to me, is a cus­tom pass­port—one that nev­er ex­pires, re­quires no visa, and of­fers un­lim­it­ed lay­overs to places you didn’t even know you longed to go to.

When I first joined AL­TA as a tu­tor, I came with two sim­ple am­bi­tions: to in­fuse the learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence with soul and warmth and to help my stu­dents col­lect as many lit­er­ary pass­port stamps as their imag­i­na­tion could car­ry.

AL­TA class­es are ex­quis­ite­ly de­signed to equip stu­dents with the lit­er­a­cy tools and cog­ni­tive co­or­di­nates nec­es­sary to em­bark on their lit­er­ary jour­neys. Be­ing a tu­tor is no light re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, as you know that you hold the tools that can help some­one take off for the first time.

Each class feels like an an­thro­po­log­i­cal study.

Step in­to an AL­TA class­room and you’re greet­ed by a kalei­do­scope of ide­olo­gies, faiths, per­son­al­i­ties, ages, and eth­nic­i­ties. To me, it has al­ways felt like some­one con­densed Trinidad and To­ba­go in­to one small room. It is vi­brant, un­pre­dictable, and end­less­ly fas­ci­nat­ing.

And if you’ve ever tried to learn some­thing new, you know there’s on­ly one proven pro­ce­dure. Prac­tise. Prac­tise. Prac­tise.

En­ter Read­ing Cir­cles, AL­TA’s bril­liant in­no­va­tion that of­fers stu­dents re­al-life read­ing im­mer­sion. My Read­ing Cir­cle crew is not your av­er­age learn­ers; they’re some of the most fear­less, cu­ri­ous, and self-mo­ti­vat­ed trav­ellers ever to take flight from the AL­TA run­way. They come to read, yes, but they al­so come to soar.

And let’s be hon­est, Boyo and Car­la aren’t go­ing to cut it here. One stu­dent, with pure Tri­ni con­vic­tion, once de­clared: “Sir, I could read this in my sleep. You know it. I know it. I’m 67. If you don’t chal­lenge me on my lev­el, I’m not com­ing back.”

She’s still here, by the way—a cor­ner­stone of the class, her at­ten­dance record as im­pec­ca­ble as her wit.

In my class, our jour­neys are eclec­tic. One week, we might be strolling down the yel­low brick road to check on Dorothy’s ex­is­ten­tial cri­sis; the next, we’re im­pris­oned with Ed­mond Dan­tès, plot­ting re­venge; or per­haps sit­ting in a dark room lis­ten­ing to thump­ing floor­boards. Each sto­ry be­comes a port of en­try in­to an­oth­er world with dis­cus­sions noth­ing short of cul­tur­al fire­works.

Af­ter a par­tic­u­lar­ly spir­it­ed de­bate about whether Miss Hav­isham was re­deemable, one stu­dent an­nounced, “I think I’m the Miss Hav­isham in my fam­i­ly, and I’m good. Ah, don’t care. I’s a good per­son.” Need­less to say, that was the end of class.

If you’ve ever seen this room full of Trin­bag­o­ni­ans laugh­ing, cry­ing, com­fort­ing, and lean­ing in for more “torey”, you’ll un­der­stand why any lit­er­a­ture pro­fes­sor would en­vy that kind of en­gage­ment. Read­ing Cir­cles are, in every way, what AL­TA in­tend­ed—the re­al-life ap­pli­ca­tion of read­ing com­pre­hen­sion through gen­uine emo­tion­al con­nec­tion.

For me, teach­ing in a class­room was al­ways a study in hu­man neu­ro­science, un­der­stand­ing how the brain learns. But be­ing a Read­ing Cir­cle guide? That’s a study in hu­man psy­chol­o­gy, un­der­stand­ing how the heart con­nects.

Every week, I wit­ness a trans­for­ma­tion. Their laugh­ter, their in­sight, their re­silience. And I get to be their pi­lot, guid­ing them from chap­ter to chap­ter, con­ti­nent to con­ti­nent, book to book.

These re­mark­able in­di­vid­u­als are not just im­prov­ing their read­ing; they’re voy­ag­ing in­to the un­chart­ed ter­ri­to­ries of their own minds, re­claim­ing con­fi­dence, dig­ni­ty, and won­der, one page at a time. Watch­ing them set sail across the vast seas of lit­er­a­ture, dis­cov­er­ing new worlds and re­dis­cov­er­ing them­selves, is an end­less­ly re­ward­ing priv­i­lege.

If you or some­one you know is in­ter­est­ed in be­com­ing a vol­un­teer tu­tor, read­ing cir­cle guide or spon­sor for a stu­dent or class, call 624-2582 or email al­ta­pos.tt@gmail.com. Keep up to date with AL­TA on Face­book, Twit­ter, and In­sta­gram: AL­TA TT