Photo of Laura M.

Thanks to Stephen Eggers, Roslyn Hyde, Laura Minkiewitz, Keito Omokawa, Bernard Thompson, Lacey Watson, and Meredith Wenger.

 Volunteers at RecTech offer their technology skills and know-how, patience, compassion, and creative energy to RecTech programs in various ways.  If you are interested in a Saturday position or other volunteer opportunities click here.

Our Story
The demand for homework help in our community is so great that our primary neighborhood tutoring center has a waiting list over fifty students long. Yesler Computer Lab has the space to accommodate a portion of that waiting list. So, we started our program with the intent of providing computer and human resources one afternoon a week for those kids who wanted some extra help.

And that approach works fine for an elite group of self-motivated kids who have the support and ambition to get started on their homework and other educational activities shortly after the school bell has rung.

But what about the perfectly smart and capable kids who did not meet those foundational criteria? Initially, when kids were acting up or perusing Facebook during the time allocated to homework help, our solution was to give them a choice: work or leave. And, more often than we liked, they left. So, we went in search of more tools for our toolbox. After performing basic research, consulting our primary neighborhood tutoring center, attending workshops from the Seattle Tutoring Coalition, and getting advice from those dealing with behavioral challenges in other contexts, we initiated a positive behavioral support strategy for working with these students.

Our Strategy
In the book Succeeding with Difficult Students, Lee and Marlene Canter write: “Once you’ve taught a difficult student the appropriate behaviors you expect, you need to immediately turn to positive reinforcement to motivate the student to choose these behaviors.” Our current strategy for motivating kids offers both immediate and delayed gratification. For each and every behavior that we wish to see repeated by a student, we give her a “ticket” (a piece of an index card) for her to write her name on. The ticket then goes into a special bag for a prize raffle held at the end of the tutoring session. We have taken to explaining the program to the kids in this way: Each ticket is an opportunity to win a prize. The harder you work and the more respectful you are, the more opportunities you will have. As the kids themselves have admitted, these rewards (as modest as they have been so far) help motivate them to change their behaviors for the better.

Our Successes
In the brief time we have been implementing this strategy, we have observed conspicuous improvements in student participation. We have gone from having participation be solely dependent on the whims of the kids to having an element of control over how the afternoon goes. Just recently, we encountered an initially reluctant and defiant student who, after finally spending about 45 minutes working on his math homework, unconsciously blurted out, “This is fun!”. That was a new one for us. Numbers of returning students have increased, activity has increased, and student willingness to try harder and harder material has increased. In short, we are getting there.

Our Next Steps
Each improvement we make in our weekly after school program also seems to highlight a new challenge. We now need some dependable support to help us build on our successes. While we regularly provide snacks at the end of our sessions, due to limited resources, we have not predictably provided them throughout. However, these kids come to us hungry, and we are seeing distinct value in feeding them early and often. So, we hope to find at least one reliable source for weekly food and beverage provisions. Currently, our positive behavioral support strategy relies solely on us finding little trinkets around our homes or having them gifted to us by friends. It would be great to bring more variety and opportunity for surprise to our pivotal reward system. Consequently, we are looking for monetary or in-kind donations of gift cards, toys, games, books, and anything else that might be of interest to kindergartners through high schoolers.
Aside from these basic next steps, we plan to keep learning, researching, and improving our approach to after school help. There is much room for growth, and we are always looking for serious and committed volunteers. Mostly, however, we plan to continue being consistently responsive to the needs of the community.

Homework Help @ Yesler runs every Monday from 4-6pm at the RecTech Yesler computer lab (917 E Yesler Way). Contact Asfaha Lemlem at asfaha.lemlem@seattle.gov for more info.

When I first signed up for this tutoring position at the Garfield Teen Life Center, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect… Garfield was a whole new experience for me, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I have fond memories that I am sure will stick with me. On my very first day of volunteering, a girl named Jenny said she needed help with her Spanish and math homework, and I told her I was more than willing. So, we sat at one of the computers and got to work. Jenny completed her assignments, but it was so much more fun than just simply doing homework, due to Jenny’s hilarious, outgoing personality. We ended up talking about a wide variety of things, from Twitter to Chris Brown. I ended up having a great time helping her and just chatting with her, which I think allowed me to relax and feel welcomed here.

…[Another] memory that I love is that of my conversation with Chad. We were talking about what Chad wanted to do after high school. Chad said he wanted to play in the NFL. I played quarterback at my high school, and I absolutely love football, so we formed an instant bond. Soon we were on YouTube searching for my team’s old game film so Chad could see me in action. Also on the subject of football, I asked Chad where he wanted to play in college. He said he was thinking either Boise State or USC…

While these memories are extremely positive, there definitely were some struggles that needed to be overcome. The hardest part was getting through to the students that I was there to help them out, and that there is absolutely no shame in asking for help. This problem occurred nearly every time I came to GTLC, [but] I was able to overcome this challenge with persistence… All in all, my time here at Garfield has been extremely rewarding. I have thoroughly enjoyed helping the students and just hanging out with them.

-       submitted by Ryan LeDuc (student names have been changed)

 Ryan was a fantastic volunteer, and we look forward to having more people volunteer at the Garfield Teen Life Center! Please contact Katie Nelson at katie.nelson@seattle.gov  about volunteer opportunities, or contact Melanie Boehm at melanie.boehm@seattle.gov for more information about RecTech @ GTLC.

Nicholas showed up to help RecTech participants and the general public during the October 2011 Get Online Week at the Garfield Community Center.  His enthusiastic spirit and warm, genuine smile made it easy for folks to warm up to him right away and ask for help with their computer-related pursuits.  After returning to Seattle from a two –year Master’s studies in Stockholm, Sweden, Nicholas wanted to be involved in his community and has since landed with RecTech at both the Garfield and Yesler sites.

I started talking with Nicholas the other day at the Yesler site and was struck by how much his experience in Stockholm parallels the lives of many immigrants who come to our country and whom we serve primarily at our Yesler RecTech site.  It seems that Nicholas’ life weaves together with the people he is serving and learning from in a variety of ways and on many levels.  To begin,  Nicholas grew up in the Yesler area and attended the local schools including Bagley-Gatzert and Garfield High School.  He has come back to serve his fellow and former neighbors which is a rarity these days for young professionals who are upwardly mobile. 

Nicholas also has a host of experiences as an immigrant to a foreign land.  He learned to navigate the “systems” of everyday living and found them to be very labor-intensive and potentially crazy-producing.  As a Scandinavian Studies major, Nicholas spent four years at the university studying the political, social, and economic structures of his family’s homeland, Sweden.  Thus, he ventured into his time of study there as a well-informed individual who spoke the language and most certainly looks the part with his bright blue eyes, fair skin, and real blonde hair.   Nonetheless, Nicholas was sharing his story of learning how to get a cell phone, bank account, and the arduous journey of landing a national identification card (thanks only to his 93-year-old grandmother who waited with him at the state office for six hours). 

Many of our Yesler  RecTech participants come to the computer lab not “looking the part” and not speaking the language.  They may be unemployed, newly immigrated, and/or from an entirely different culture that may not place as much of an emphasis on the use and glitz of technology.  They are truly in a foreign land and we, RecTech, get to be their first landing space before they launch into the working world and culture of the United States.  We offer English as a Second Language classes, Citizenship classes, tutorials on writing a resume and how to apply for online jobs.  We don’t always know where our participants go when they move on from the computer lab, but we know that by supporting and encouraging them and walking them through the process of many American medical, employment, and housing systems, they are going to be a little bit better off. 

That is why we are so grateful for volunteers like Nicholas who have the talent, time, and dedication to help our participants be successful through the process of becoming a citizen of the U.S. or learning English, or finding a good job.  Who knows where the next link might take them?