Rose­marie Ol­liv­erre

Make no mis­take about it. From the mo­ment you walk through the door on Bel­mont Cir­cu­lar Road you know that AL­TA (Adult Lit­er­a­cy Tu­tors As­so­ci­a­tion) is se­ri­ous busi­ness.

There I was think­ing I could just waltz in and start teach­ing adult lit­er­a­cy class­es. Af­ter all, I had taught at sec­ondary school for many years and I was sure they need­ed vol­un­teers.

Well no siree! Not at AL­TA!

Sal­ly in the front of­fice, pleas­ant and ef­fi­cient but very firm, lets you know in no un­cer­tain terms that this was not a com­mit­ment to be tak­en light­ly. If you can­not com­mit the time to teach, then there was no point in do­ing the train­ing.

First, I had to fill out a form and a one-page in­tro­duc­tion to the sounds and pat­terns in words. Well this put things in per­spec­tive as I re­alised how lit­tle I knew about teach­ing lit­er­a­cy.

Next, was the in­ter­view to as­cer­tain whether I was a wor­thy can­di­date. I was then in­formed that I had to ob­serve at least eight class­es be­fore I could be trained.

At first, I was some­what tak­en aback but, truth be told, I was quite im­pressed by the rigour to which prospec­tive tu­tors were sub­ject­ed. This was no "vieke­vie" or­gan­i­sa­tion, it was clear that this un­der­tak­ing was an im­por­tant re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

The ob­ser­va­tion class­es turned out to be a re­al eye-open­er. What im­pressed me most was the at­mos­phere in the class room. The re­la­tion­ship be­tween the tu­tors and the stu­dents was one of mu­tu­al trust, and open­ness.

The stu­dents had tremen­dous re­spect for the tu­tors who were so well-pre­pared and ea­ger to fa­cil­i­tate learn­ing. They were in tune with each oth­er and sen­si­tive to the stu­dents.

They were al­ways pos­i­tive and be­lieved in the stu­dents, af­firm­ing them. The dy­nam­ics of this caused every­one to reach for the best with­in them­selves.

The oth­er thing that re­al­ly hit me, was the bond be­tween the tu­tors and stu­dents and the bond among the stu­dents them­selves. They of­ten worked in pairs and helped each oth­er with as­sign­ments sound­ing out words and en­cour­ag­ing each oth­er.

Of course there were times when, in true Tri­ni style, some­one would crack a good joke and every­one would burst in­to spon­ta­neous laugh­ter.

I was al­so amazed by how much I was learn­ing.

The stu­dents were able to ap­ply rules which were un­fa­mil­iar to me. Us­ing their cards and the rules, they were able to pro­nounce words and spell words which they recog­nised for the first time.

This opened up a whole new world to them as it did to me; a light had be­gun to shine in the dark­ness.

The lessons stim­u­lat­ed thought and of­ten caused the stu­dents to pause and re­flect on their lives. It was so touch­ing lis­ten­ing to them shar­ing their life sto­ries. It helped me to get a bet­ter in­sight of the stu­dents. I be­gan to see why every­one at AL­TA was so well bond­ed.

I al­so re­alised why one had to be com­plete­ly com­mit­ted. This was no or­di­nary ven­ture. In this AL­TA class­room peo­ple were be­ing em­pow­ered, lives were be­ing trans­formed–both stu­dents and teach­ers were be­com­ing en­light­ened.

So many bar­ri­ers which di­vide our so­ci­ety were bro­ken down–race, gen­der, so­cial sta­tus all be­came unim­por­tant.

We con­nect­ed with one an­oth­er on a deep­er lev­el each recog­nis­ing the quest to be­come a bet­ter per­son. We need­ed each oth­er–I need­ed them just as much or, per­haps, even more than they need­ed me.

So I signed my con­tract as­sur­ing Sal­ly that I would be there for all the train­ing ses­sions and would com­mit to tu­tor­ing for one school year.

What I didn't tell her is that I con­sid­ered it a priv­i­lege to be a part of this so­cial move­ment which is a pos­i­tive light shin­ing on our na­tion.

I am so ea­ger to start for I know that em­pow­er­ing oth­ers with the gift of read­ing must bring pur­pose and mean­ing to life like noth­ing else can.

Play your part to build lit­er­a­cy. If you have time, vol­un­teer to be an AL­TA tu­tor, a Read­ing Cir­cle guide or to as­sist stu­dents on the com­put­er. If your time is al­ready booked, spon­sor an AL­TA stu­dent for the year (TT$500).

Call 624-AL­TA (2582) ore-mail al­tatt@ya­hoo.com.

?