“Teaching is a creative profession, not a delivery system. Great teachers do pass on information, but what great teachers also do is mentor, stimulate, provoke, engage.” – Sir Ken Robinson
Happy almost-end-of July (yikes), Literacy Council tutors. If you’re a glass half-full or half-empty person I suppose decides whether or not you think we still have plenty of summer left, but I smell autumn in the air already- or maybe it’s just the school supplies out for sale in the stores. At any rate, there IS enough time to check out the tutor-recommended summer reading list on page three of this month’s newsletter. I didn’t hear back from many, but we still managed to generate a pretty interesting selection of suggested reading, approved by your own LC peers.
On a teaching note, tutor Andy Preziosi has recommended a writing text (with accompanying workbook) titled The ESL Writer’s Handbook by Janine Carlock, Maeve Eberhardt, and Jamie Horst. If you’re working with an advanced English learner, Andy says this book is great for those preparing to enter English 101 in college and who need to prepare themselves for the rigors of academic paper writing. CCPL has a copy of the textbook (3rd edition), and it’s available on Amazon for $35. We will try to get a copy for the office.
I’d like to start highlighting student achievements in these newsletters (and on our website), and we’ll start with Susan Butcher’s student María Sánchez, who passed the U.S. citizenship test in May. A married mother of two girls, master jigsaw puzzler, and wonderful cook from Perú, María has been working with Susan for three years. After much studying, now everyone in María’s family is a U.S. citizen. Please send me an e-mail with any news you’d like to share about your students’ achievements, and we, as a group, will join in their joy and yours as their teachers, supporters, and encouragers.
In more celebratory news, we’d like to welcome Jasmin Sarabia to our Board of Directors at the Literacy Council. Many of you heard Jasmin speak at our Tutor Talk in early June. We look forward to her fresh perspective as a Latina small business owner in Carroll County with a heart for community engagement.
Now for some housekeeping! We have a Tutor Fundraising Committee meeting scheduled for Monday, August 11 at 11 a.m. if you’d like to join us. We had four tutors at our first meeting in June and will welcome anyone else who’d like to join us as we flesh out a few of the projects we’ve chosen to develop. As I’ve mentioned before, one of the ideas we’re working on is a Literacy Council cookbook for which I’m collecting recipes from both tutors and students. I’ve received a handful, but please continue to send in your favorite recipes and ask your students to participate, too, if willing. Another thing students can help us with is greatnonprofits.org; our page is looking sort of sad at only five reviews. None have been added since May, so let’s shoot for that ten-review mark so we can earn the not-so-elusive-but-obviously-harder-than-it-seems Top Nonprofit of 2025 badge by the end of the year.
In closing, I opened with Sir Ken Robinson’s quote because I feel like it’s a helpful reminder that teaching is an art that involves more than the studying of English or math, or preparing someone for the GED or citizenship exam, or helping a student learn how to use a computer. Materials are necessary aids in the process, but no book will do the work of a great teacher. The relationships many of you form with your students grow to be more meaningful than the passing on of a subject, and as an ESOL teacher myself, I know how much our students become a part of our lives as well. Teaching is both gift and reward, and the Literacy Council thanks you for your heart-filled and dedicated volunteerism.
