Again, from Toni:
Every Tuesday afternoon since mid-June I can be found at the Fred Victor Employment and Training Services Centre. It is only a ten minute walk from home. No, I am not getting training to find employment for myself.
After I enter the building I walk past the employment area (bustling with people preparing to be sent out on job interviews) to the computer lab in back. For three hours two afternoons a week the lab is open to individuals participating in the Back-to-Basics educational program. This program provides people one-on-one assistance with: computers, preparing for the GED or college entrance exams, English as a Second Language (ESL), and job hunting skills. At any given time a dozen students are being triaged by the program coordinator to be helped by two tutors. I was lucky enough to be chosen to be one of those volunteer tutors. In a typical session people need my help when they get stuck using one of the online tutorials or from hardcopy exercises for grammar or algebra. In between questions, I correct the hardcopy exercises that have been completed. At every session, there are some people that need special help which is the most challenging and interesting part of the job.
In this week’s session I taught a woman, a recent émigré, how to use a computer for the very first time. She had never operated a mouse, keyboard, or even been on the internet. She lives in a women’s shelter. She is over forty years old and English is her second language. I spent less than an hour with her, starting with getting her oriented with the hardware, explaining some basic terminology like the word, “cursor”, making her comfortable with a mouse, moving on to what software does, then on to internet searches with Google. I got her to the point where she was able work without assistance for the next two hours. She practiced reading English by finding websites that would get her more familiar with Toronto. She left at the end of the session eager to return on Thursday for more.
My next student has been coming to the centre regularly for several months. I taught him a few tricks to perform quick and successful internet searches related to his career goals. He is in his mid-50's and an ex-con. He never held down a legal job because before serving a lengthy stay in a penitentiary his occupation was a longtime gang member dealing drugs at a high level while travelling and living in various countries. After serving his time, he committed himself to putting crime behind and doing whatever it takes to start over. To achieve his goals, mostly we assist him each week with composing correspondence to potential financial sponsors, schools, and employers to enable him to start a career in addiction counseling. His job counselor and I have helped him to perfect his resume so he can get some part-time work while in school. We taught him how highlight his talents and skills resulting from his past experiences: speaking three languages fluently, diverse cultural understanding, and determination to help at-risk people. Our resume content discussions have helped him to value what he has: the retention of his good basic academic skills from his attendance at a Jesuit grade school, his caring about his health and appearance, his growing ease with using office equipment and his naturally extraverted people-oriented personality. It has been very rewarding to witness his growing self esteem when he sees these things in writing. He is gradually losing his pessimism and knows he will eventually become what he calls “a real person”.
Towards the end of the three hour session I helped a Chinese woman with her English pronunciation. She has been in Canada for several years and is doing very well with her written English grammar and spelling but people cannot understand her speaking and she has trouble understanding them. She has no family, lives alone in her own apartment near the Centre, and works three days a week as a housekeeper. She wants to work full-time at a unionized hotel where she can move up from a meager existence. She keeps her resume updated and is able to obtain job interviews but she is rejected because the supervisors interviewing her tell her they cannot understand her English. So that is why the job counselor recommended she attend the Back-to-Basics Program.
It broke my heart to hear her story because she described to me how skilled she was as a housekeeper in making beds, cleaning, and making a room look good. She can read a schedule and instructions without problems. Not only can she do the job that few people want but she takes pride in it and likes what she does. She described the discrimination she faces from both her culture and those of others. Fellow Chinese will not assist her because she is not of their family or has no connection to their families. Toronto has a large Chinatown but it is a closed society. The other problem is that the interviewers in the big hotels are usually Latin or Eastern European and English is their second language as well. This situation makes it all the more difficult for them to communicate. The hotel managers feel they have already paid their own dues by improving their English and there is little sympathy for newer immigrants. She cannot join the hotel workers union without getting a job first at a union hotel. She is in a real life Catch 22 and her only option now is to improve her English language skills.
To start her first lesson I went through the English alphabet with her, distinctly pronouncing each letter while she watched the movements of my mouth and imitated them as she repeated the letters. We discussed how she must memorize these sounds and how to make them while visualizing the spelling of the words so she can remember when she needs to make these sounds. On her second time through the exercise she was pronouncing each letter perfectly. The next time we will try a list of whole words. Through our conversation we also discovered she needs to expand her vocabulary so more reading and writing is needed along with conversational lessons. I will help her to overcome performance anxiety as well so she can have the skill to refrain from reverting back to old habits when under the pressure of an interview. I am excited to work with her again and to witness each step of improvement. We will eventually see her career goal met.
I am humbled by the students’ motivation. Despite any challenges I have had in my life I have been privileged with health, safety, friendship and abundant resources simply from being born into and working within an enlightened western culture. At my age I know myself pretty well and firmly believe if I had to face harsher conditions and more prejudices I would have failed. These students are very friendly, respectful, and grateful, always thanking me for helping them. I try to return the appreciation as I feel that they teach me more things than I have ever experienced before in such short periods of time. I am so glad they have placed themselves in a situation that will lead them out of their hardships. As their tough journey continues I hope it will get easier and they will experience more and more of the privileges they deserve as human beings.
