To celebrate our inspiring Oakland School Volunteers, we’re asking them to share their stories. These are their Volunteer Voices.
“Describe four happy moments and four difficult moments in your life experience.” It sounds like a pretty straightforward assignment, but to Castlemont High School Teacher Karen Toepp’s 10th-grade newcomer students, this assignment offers two large challenges. First, how to express these experiences in English, and second, confronting the memories these experiences evoke.
The students are all recent immigrants, most having come to Oakland after fleeing violence in their homelands of Central America and Mexico. Most traveled here alone. The happy moments they describe are familiar to all of us: memories of family, birthdays, sports triumphs. The difficult memories are poignant and tragic: a holding cell with bars, a best friend assassinated by a gang, a mother and children who fled threats from drug lords.
Why am I volunteering in these English Language Development (ELD) classes and helping translate instructions in an elective mainstream computer graphics class? I recently retired from teaching high school Spanish in Moraga to students who have the benefits of a safe and supportive community. I taught in a nearly idyllic situation, but I live in Oakland and felt I wanted to give back to my community. I wanted, in some small way, to touch the lives of young people who have gone through so much to get here and who deserve the best chance to achieve a happy, healthy, productive life.
The newcomers have two years, 9th and 10th grades, to develop their English skills in ELD classes while studying math, science, history, physical education, and computer science in English-speaking newcomer classes. As of 11th grade, they are mainstreamed for all classes except ELD. It is a challenge for them to be ready for this transition, particularly when their early schooling in their home countries may not have been strong. They have a lot to achieve in a short time. In addition, many must work to support themselves. Some merely rent rooms and don’t have adults in their lives to guide them.
Every day I volunteer I look into these bright eyes and think of all they have seen and been through. Why do I volunteer? To be one more friendly, welcoming face, one more positive influence, so that these students will be able to pursue their education and become successful, productive adults.
— Castlemont High School Volunteer Charly Taylor
Inspired by Charly’s story? Become an Oakland School Volunteer by signing up here!
If you’d like to make your own Volunteer Voice heard, please email Oakland School Volunteers Program at osv@oaklandedfund.org.
Below: Oakland School Volunteer Charly Taylor (second from right) with Castlemont students and their teacher Karen Toepp (third from left)
