Final Service Learning Reflection #1

Until 7th grade, I've always went to an expensive catholic school in Chicago, Illinois. This is where I learned how to read and write. I know I learned a bunch of things like nouns, verbs and pronouns because I use them everyday and it comes naturally today, but the funny thing is, I don't remember actually learning them. These english "rules" have been pounded into my mind for years, and after a little while they have just sticked. I was never the greatest writer going through middle school. I would call myself an average writer and it wasn't until I was in High School where I became a better writer. I don't know if it was because I cared about my academic scores or I just really enjoyed writing. Looking back on my literacy experience, I am really grateful for my teachers that helped me become literate, even though I probably didn't care much for it when I was little. I felt my literacy experience compared to the students at NALC was different. Maybe because I can't really remember my experience? I don't know. At NALC, the students are older but are going through different lesson plans than I did, but they still teach the same concepts. When I tutored the man from Cambodia, it was easy to recognize that we were from different cultures and hardly shared anything in common with each other, except we both believed in the idea of being literate. I found it interesting how the tables switched now that I was tutoring. Who once was a student learning from a teacher about grammar and pronunciation was now teaching a man who moved to America 4 months ago English. Though the Cambodian man and I were physically different, we shared and believed in the same idea of a person being happier when they are literate.