Plazas Comunitarias

 

Manos de Cristo offers English as a Second Language, Computer Literacy, Citizenship, and Spanish Literacy classes. I’d like to share a bit more about the Spanish Literacy program, what it entails, and my experience with it.

First of all, I researched a bit to find out how others defined this program, called Plazas Comunitarias. This is compiled from various websites:

“…In order to address the educational deficit of Latino adults living in the United States, the Mexican Council of Education for Life and Work (CONEVyT for its acronym in Spanish) and the Mexican National Institute for Adult Education (INEA), have created La Plaza Comunitaria program, which offers the Latino community a set of technological means that allow access to knowledge through its educational portal.”

“…The Plaza Comunitaria (roughly translated: community learning center) is a physical location

that makes this technology accessible to everyone, regardless of economic status, and provides

technical assistance through tutors, facilitators, and mentoring of students.”

“…Plazas offer the opportunity for youth and adults to have literacy courses and to start or continue their elementary, middle and high school education in Spanish. Every student who completes his or her education under this program gets a certificate provided by the Mexican Ministry of Education and is prepared to present successfully a GED in Spanish and, if the student has a good level of English, to present it in this language. Furthermore, many studies show how students can learn English faster and more efficiently if they have a solid education in their own language.”

In my time being a tutor for Plazas, I have come to realize just how much it takes for these people to come to class. They have jobs, and families, and face so many hardships… I can do nothing more but admire their effort.

Adult education, no matter the level of literacy, has to be geared towards ADULTS. Although these students may have low literacy levels, they have valuable life experience that cannot be taken for granted.  These are people who for various reasons have been unable to complete their formal education, but haven’t forgotten the value of it and have decided to take on the challenge of completing it. Sometimes the challenge is too overwhelming. Sometimes we lose some students. But we encourage and support them as much as we can.

On a more personal level, I’m very familiar with this program because I was once on the other side of it as a student myself. I was homeschooled in Mexico as a kid, which is not very common. When I reached a certain age, I took equivalency exams through the National Institute for Adult Education and obtained my official certificates that way. I know the books that the students are studying, because I once studied them myself.

My case was very different, but I still like to share my story with them sometimes. They are working towards an achievable goal with an end result that just might give them the confidence and knowledge to take on a better job, to help their kids with schoolwork, to pick up a book and discover the pure joy of reading, to better themselves.

A volunteer teacher for Plazas came up to me recently and said that after being a college professor for 25 years, her eyes had been opened when it came to low literacy students. I hope that this program can continue to do just that – open our collective eyes and help these students achieve their goals.