These days, Hackensack High School in New Jersey stays open long after the kids have gone home. The classrooms are filled by students’ parents, seeking their own education.
“To take ESL classes in the U.S. is very expensive, so when I heard they are giving English class in the high school, I said I want to go,” says Albina Cruz, who came to the U.S. as a teenager, but didn’t feel pressure to learn English until she had children of her own. “I know that it’s very hard when [they] do homework and don’t have anyone to check if it’s right or wrong,” Cruz says.
The mother of two is one of 350 parents who have participated in the new program — launched in 2012 by the Hackensack school district where 60 percent of students are Hispanic — designed to help immigrant parents become more involved in their children’s education. Diana Bermudez, parent outreach facilitator for the school district, spearheaded the program and says parent attendance at school meetings has more than quadrupled since the program began.
A recent study published in the New York Times confirms there is no clear consensus on whether parental involvement does improve a child’s academic performance, but Bermudez says thats not just about academics, its also about building a stronger community. “We try to work as a team where everyone can give back, everyone can do a little something to help us all move on and that’s the culture we’re creating.”
Tag: ESL
Meet the Celebrity Chefs Cooking Up a Unique Way to Improve Literacy
As the old maxim goes, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.
Now, a new literacy program in Philadelphia hopes this proves true not just for men, but for women and kids, too. And instead of romantic love, they’re looking to foster a love of reading.
In the City of Brotherly Love, more than half a million adults are illiterate or low-literate — that’s more than half of the adult population of the city. So the Free Library of Philadelphia is partnering with local Iron Chef alums Jose Garces and Marc Vetri to launch a non-traditional, cooking-based literacy program. The Culinary Literacy Center opened June 2, offering cooking and literacy classes to adults, kids, teenagers, and ESL students of all ages.
“The beauty of culinary literacy is that it’s basic literacy skills — math and science — and you get to make something. That tactile part of when you’re learning something is so important,” Siobhan Reardon, the president of the Free Library of Philadelphia told Francis Hilario of the Philadelphia Business Journal. “For us, the role of the library is about the grand experiment of bringing people to literacy, and that’s what we’re doing here.”
Garces, an Ecuadorian-American chef, restaurant owner, and of course, Iron Chef winner, has been helping immigrants for years through his Garces Foundation. He sees this venture as aligning with his foundation’s mission of helping kids and teaching people to read by following and writing recipes.
The Parkway Central Library in Philadelphia is in the middle of a major renovation that included adding the Culinary Literacy Center, with its three ovens, walk-in refrigerator and 16 burners. Currently, the library is working with Garces and Ventri to get a school curriculum developed for the fall.
With any luck, after their cooking classes, the new students will be inspired to take home a few books from the library.
MORE: This Program is Transforming Unemployed Veterans Into In-Demand Chefs