Walk With Alberto

This week when Katie and I met Alberto we immediately spent some more time working on the computer. He brought his username and password with him so, we were able to show him how to login to a computer and check his e-mails. As he has slowly typing in his username and password to access his e-mails, I could see the excitement in his face. With each letter he typed his smile grew bigger. Then, when his e-mail came up he just froze. I said, "Alberto this is your e-mail" and he responded, "wow so this is what e-mail looks like." I got goose-bumps because it never occurred to me that he had literally never even seen e-mail. Katie and I showed him how to click on each e-mail and delete it if necessary. Katie has to help me remember to point out the basics like selecting an e-mail to open. I forget that Alberto does not know even the simplest tasks and yet to me they are almost instinctual.  He was able to read and comprehend each e-mail with ease. He had a grin from ear to ear as he was learning all of this. Then he said, "this is a lot for me and now I must go home and practice with my kids." I told him that practice makes perfect, we all have to start somewhere, and I was once a beginner too. 

For our next big adventure of the day we went for a walk. Katie and I asked him to show us where he worked. He pointed to an area beyond the Bass Building but, Katie and I did not know exactly what he was talking about. We told him to lead the way. Katie and I both learned something from him! There are graduate apartments about two or three blocks behind the library and another random building that we could not identify. He is in charge of both those areas.  As we walked towards his designated area that he maintains we started to point out things. I would point at a plant and ask him what specifically it was like a bush, hedge, grass, and tree. He knew grass and tree fairly well but he did not know the difference between a hedge and bush. After we got that settled I asked him to identify the different parts of a tree. He did not know what that meant so I showed him what a trunk, branch, and leaf are. We also went over what a sidewalk is and what weeds are. He said that his boss always asks him to get rid of the weeds and he has never known what that means.  

Overall, I think this meeting was extremely successful. I continue to be touched by how eager he is to learn. We covered a lot of new material. Alberto took it all in and was excited to go home and share all his discoveries with his family. It will be interesting to see how much he actually retains. Next week we are going to review the computer some more, go over landscape vocabulary more, and start some citizenship activities.