The "Berkeley Reads" literacy project
I puttered around this morning, then headed out to school, but I got soooooo sleepy that I decided to come home again. I'm running a week or so ahead of the other students in the class, anyway, so I just slept and slept for hours.
In the evening, I got up to spend a bit of time with Shannon when he finished work, and then I headed off to the West Branch library for the first meeting of the Berkeley Reads tutor training. There were quite a few prospective tutors there (maybe 15 of us?), which I found both surprising and wonderful. So many people wanting to give their time to help others! The meeting was an hour shorter than I'd been told in advance (they sent me a PDF of a flier), so I'm not sure how terrifically organized these folks are, but I'm hoping all the rest of the meetings (3 more in the next 2 weeks) will meet at the times they've indicated.
I found the meeting pretty exciting, because it reminded me of when I was doing small group tutoring at UCI. I *loved* tutoring, and I put a lot of time and effort into it, trying to come up with ideas that would make learning fun for my students. I remember I made up a Jeopardy game to help them study for their midterm exam, and I created a Trivial Pursuit game at one point, too. I've always loved learning, so I want to share that enthusiasm with other folks.
I think I'll have a great time with the literacy tutoring, looking for creative reading material that will interest the person I'm working with. The Berkeley Reads folks said it might take a while to pair us up with tutees (since they try to find good matches), but that should give me time to finish my design class, so I don't mind.
Looking forward to our first day of actual training on Saturday!
In the evening, I got up to spend a bit of time with Shannon when he finished work, and then I headed off to the West Branch library for the first meeting of the Berkeley Reads tutor training. There were quite a few prospective tutors there (maybe 15 of us?), which I found both surprising and wonderful. So many people wanting to give their time to help others! The meeting was an hour shorter than I'd been told in advance (they sent me a PDF of a flier), so I'm not sure how terrifically organized these folks are, but I'm hoping all the rest of the meetings (3 more in the next 2 weeks) will meet at the times they've indicated.
I found the meeting pretty exciting, because it reminded me of when I was doing small group tutoring at UCI. I *loved* tutoring, and I put a lot of time and effort into it, trying to come up with ideas that would make learning fun for my students. I remember I made up a Jeopardy game to help them study for their midterm exam, and I created a Trivial Pursuit game at one point, too. I've always loved learning, so I want to share that enthusiasm with other folks.
I think I'll have a great time with the literacy tutoring, looking for creative reading material that will interest the person I'm working with. The Berkeley Reads folks said it might take a while to pair us up with tutees (since they try to find good matches), but that should give me time to finish my design class, so I don't mind.
Looking forward to our first day of actual training on Saturday!