Hands On Charlotte making an impact at KIPP Charlotte

For as much as we talk about the impact of Hands On Charlotte volunteers, it felt pretty great on Friday when WSOC TV did a spot on our program at KIPP Charlotte. Reporters came and looked at our tutoring program at KIPP Charlotte, a charter school for underserved communities.

Thank you to all the volunteers who participate at KIPP Charlotte and at all of our tutoring programs in Charlotte. Want more information on how you can get involved in one of our Charlotte tutoring programs? Email Shari Williams.

Pop quiz (and it's easy yes/no questions!)

Can you read?


Can you do basic (no more than algebra) math?


Can you describe a platypus?


If you answered yes to any of these questions, you're perfectly qualified to tutor in one of Hand On Charlotte's adult literacy/GED tutoring labs.


Each week, HOC provides volunteers for labs at two Central Piedmont Community College (CPCC) campuses, Central and Harris (by the airport). Six projects are offered at various times during the day and evening Tuesdays through Thursdays.

I've been a tutor since I joined HOC in 2000 and have co-led the Thursday night project at CPCC's Harris Campus since 2003 (I think!). It's been the most rewarding of all my HOC experiences by far. I've been a bookworm since I was a kid; I can't imagine not being able to read, to be transported through the power of words to another time, place, perspective, experience. To be able to help other people become confident in their ability to transform the characters on a page to images in their minds is the greatest privilege!

Right now, we need a lot more volunteers who are interested in literacy to join us at the Harris Campus on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. to experience this great privilege. A typical night finds the lab full of 10 to 15 students, eager for some personal attention and instruction. That same night finds the lab near-vacant of volunteers to help them. Sometimes, we have as few as three tutors; other times, we have seven or eight. Either way, tutors have to juggle at least two and sometimes three or four students, and no one gets a quality experience in this situation.

I think volunteers shy away from tutoring older students and adults out of fear. Perhaps they don't realize that most of our students range from reading at the third-grade level to finishing their GED and are afraid they won't know or remember what to teach or how to help them. (Here are a couple of hints: the textbooks used in both the literacy and GED programs are super-easy to understand and it's OK to send a student to the restroom for five minutes while you brush up on your long division skills!)


Perhaps they're nervous about the kinds of students they'll encounter. I've met the most amazing folks: a woman in her mid-50s who came "to school" after the women in her church laughed at her when they realized she couldn't read; some of the Lost Boys who braved the killing fields of Rwanda to come to the U.S.; a sharecropper's son from South Carolina in his late 70s who came to the lab faithfully every day after work and spent three-and-a-half hours learning the alphabet.


And (here's where that platypus comes in) sisters from Somalia who worked as hotel maids by day and studied English by night. It's hard enough to explain a platypus to someone whose native tongue is English; try explaining it to someone who's just learning our language! But I promise you, this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do as a tutor!


If you can describe a platypus, tell a noun from a verb and/or add a (short!) column of numbers, please consider trying one of the adult tutoring projects! I can't speak for the others, but on Thursday nights at the Harris Campus, we've got a dedicated corps of regular tutors who welcome you to join us! More importantly, we've got an enthusiastic corps of regular students who will be more grateful for your presence and brains than I can express to you on this blog.


Tutoring is not just about volunteers teaching the students; there's plenty of learning happening both ways. But you'll have to come find that out on your own. See you Thursday!


Sara Collins is the co-leader at the CPCC GED tutoring program.

Believe it, Mrs. Math: I'm a math tutor now

The words every volunteer tutor loathes to hear from a high school student: “I need some help with math.”


The response I’ve always wanted to give: “Hey, me too, kid. Where do we get in line?”


Alas, today I was the math tutor. For one hour, it was my responsibility to help a ninth grader at Midwood High School understand the concepts of integers and basic algebra. And to what I imagine would be the utter disbelief of Mrs. Barritt, Mrs. Pilo, Mrs. Zack and every other math teacher I’ve ever had, I didn’t cause this student to regress in her understanding of mathematics, time or space. In fact, the session was a great success.


I don’t know if there’s a more rewarding volunteer experience for me than to tutor students. The objective and success are clearly defined. That’s easy. But more importantly, tutoring provides an opportunity to have a real impact on a young person’s personal and professional life. Success in school snowballs into positive self-confidence, and confidence, I’ve learned, begets success in so many of life’s challenges. Help a kid earn an A on a math test after he earned a D on a previous attempt. Then watch how his outlook about school and life changes.


My co-worker Shari and I are planning to go back to Midwood High School every Wednesday from here on out. Sign up to join us on the Web site. And I assure you: no matter how bizarre it might seem to your former teachers, you can handle the academic rigors of being a high school tutor.




-Tanner



PS! - Hey, we're really serious about getting this blog up and running again. If you made it all the way to the "PS!" of this post, do you mind following our blog, ReTweeting, hitting the "Like" button or just calling a friend to tell them about us! Hands On Charlotte is hitting the blogosphere!