My director shared a story with me the other day when we were talking about how the small group tutoring is going in the community while we can’t meet together in our big group. She shared that one little boy, whom we identified this year as needing a lot of extra help, has been working with her one on one. Since he lives close, he as been visiting Claudia each day for tutoring. He is a fourth grader who did not know his numbers at the beginning of the year. Claudia explained that he has leukemia and is in remission right now, but became so far behind in school that his teacher tells him he is slow and has learning problems. Thankfully we are working individually with each child right now and Claudia has been able to start at the beginning in reading with him. She reported that last week that he accomplished writing his numbers to 100 and is finally mastering some of the letters and blends with vowels. She gave him a little quiz to see what he had learned. He scored 60% on the quiz and was so excited he was breathless. He asked to take the test home to his mom because he wants to teach her to read what he can read. Claudia shared that he said he usually doesn’t even put anything on his exam papers because he doesn’t understand the letters or what he is supposed to do. So this passing grade was extremely exciting. We may not be reaching all 180 students that are registered due to this virus, but we are taking the opportunity to go a little deeper with a few. Tutoring and mentorship is continuing in ways I never dreamed possible.
-Angie
“Unfortunately brothers and sisters we are the product of a spiritualized individualistic education.
We were taught:
Try to save your soul and don’t worry about the rest.
We told the suffering:
Be patient, heaven will follow, hang on
NO, that’s not right, that’s not salvation!
That’s not the salvation Christ brought.
The salvation Christ brings is a salvation from every bondage that oppresses human beings.
-Archbishop Romero”