or Q is for Cute
I have a thing about "qute" spellings of words. I don't like them. I didn't used to mind, but that all changed after one year in New Orleans doing a service project with our church.
Ward and I were young professionals spending a lot of time at our jobs. We had big projects with deadlines that could only be met by spending many hours at the office. To add something else to our life besides work, we spent every Wednesday afternoon tutoring young kids at a local church. The kids were in kindergarten through second grade from disadvantaged families. A van would pick them up after school and bring them to the church for snacks and tutoring from volunteers, including Ward and me. The idea was early intervention with learning would help prevent problems further down the road.
What a surprise these kids were for us. Reading was a big part of both of our households growing up, but not for these kids. They had no reading material in their homes. Not a newspaper, not a book, not even a TV guide. None of these kids could read and not all of them even knew the alphabet. TV was the main form of entertainment and where they got their examples. "What's a word that starts with J?"
"Jack from Three's Company"
Their home life was difficult with all of them living in housing projects. I remember one day when Eric, whom we worked with, was excited because he was going to get to visit his uncle in jail. His father was no where in sight and his uncle was a special person to him.
As I saw how these kids struggled, I started to look at things differently. I noticed when words were spelled with cute spellings for advertising. All I could think about when I saw them was how hard reading was for these kids and they didn't need help with nonstandard spellings.
And I started to be less judgmental about what people were reading. I didn't realize it, but I was judging people by their choice in reading material. I didn't think as highly of someone reading a romance novel as someone reading a classic. But after working with these kids, I was very happy to see someone reading. Anything. It didn't matter what the content was. Ward and I rode the bus to work through some of these housing projects where these kids lived. Not many people were reading on the bus, but my heart sang when I saw someone reading, no matter what it was.
I'd like to say that Eric eventually went to college because of our early work with him, but I don't know where he ended up. And the saddest part of the whole experience was I felt like were already too late. We went every week, but I didn't feel like we were making a difference with these kids. They needed more help than we could them, but I hope I am wrong. I hope we planted a little seed somewhere that helped them live a better life.
I'd like to think you were a huge influence on Eric. Reading is so necessary in our society, it's hard to think there are people who can't read, still, nowadays. I hate cute spellings, misspells on teachers' paperwork and in newspapers and official news organizations' websites, billboards, government paperwork, etc.
ReplyDeleteMy mom never was a reader but my dad is a huge reader. He would read in the bathroom and we kept a basket for his books in there, lol (I know, ewwww). That really influenced me and when my parents divorced when I was 9, I took it upon myself to influence my younger brothers and forced them to read every night, as I did. I read outloud to them, lent them my books. My dad got us a library card when we were young and we would always go visit the library when he visited him. We'd bring back 3 books each because that's all we were allowed by library rules, but I always wanted to bring many more so he started letting us stay at the library for a couple of hours so we could read more books there instead of just leaving after we had picked up our selection. The first thing I did when I found out I was pregnant with Oldest Son was buy him books. I started collecting Little Critter books for him. All my kids were huge readers but it waned when they became teens, sadly, and with the emergence of smartphones and a much more prevalent internet. We'd read to them every night and when they started learning how to read, we'd have them read outloud to us every night too. Such great memories. When I was homeschooling Youngest Son, we'd borrow the limit from the library: 100 books! Of course a lot of them were reference books, but we (and then he) would read many many books on all subjects throughout the week. It was awesome!
And I laughed when I read that you looked down on people who read romance novels. I was a very heavy romance novel reader starting when I was about 12 or 13. I loved the Harlequin series when I was a teen and since they were translations of the American Harlequin books, I can honestly say that most of what I knew about the US (culture, history, geography...) I learned from Harlequin (and "Lucky Luke", a French comic book series about a cowboy in the 1800s and another French comic book series about the Civil War). It was super useful when I eventually came over here as a college student :) So I was a philosophy/Foreign Language major in high school but you'd find me with my nose in a Harlequin book whenever I took a break from studying, lol. I read plenty of respectable litterature, rest assured :) Nowadays, I'm all about murder and mayhem, spies, lawyers. I'm happy in my love life so romance novels hold little interest nowadays. But I remember my time reading them very fondly.
Confession: despite all this, I admit that I kind of looked down on grown women who were obsessed by such books as "Twilight" or "Shades of Grey", which is very hypocritical of me but no one is perfect :)
Kudos to you for having volunteered your time helping others. Early intervention is crucial, which is why such programs as HeadStart should be protected and fully funded in our communities, IMO.
And lastly, I liked your creative way of using "Qute" spelling as your theme for today's post. That letter is quite quirky to quote!
We didn't have many books in our house when we were little because they just weren't in the budget. But our mother had us at the library all of the time. We got library cards when it took the entire card for us to sprawl our first name over. That was back in the days when you actually signed your name on a card. So reading and education was stressed from early on.
DeleteAs for romance novels, I just hadn't been around enough to appreciate differences in what people read. What's funny is that I didn't even realize that I was making that distinction. The whole experience tutoring that year opened my mind.
Though this is not exactly what you are talking about in this post, since you mentioned your earlier mentoring I thought this might be interesting. I am going to do a little more research before I sign up as a volunteer for our local reading programs, just so I will have my head in a more helpful place.
ReplyDeleteI never understood reading romance novels, said the woman who read every single word of the Fire and Ice series (Game of Thrones) Pot, meet kettle, huh?
Would have been nice if I had actually posted the link. http://stateofopportunity.michiganradio.org/post/teaching-students-how-switch-between-black-english-and-standard-english-can-help-them-get-ahead
DeleteThat sounds like a good program. We all have to code switch to some extent, but some groups need to do it more than others. The population seems to be very sensitive these days and I would be somewhat afraid to step into this program. But hopefully, the people in the program would want to be there. I think I would learn a whole lot if I did it. You'll have to let us know how it works out.
DeleteI don't know if I mind "qute" spelling as much as I mind poor grammar and spelling from people who have had the education to know better (I'm looking at you, 5th grade teacher of my daughter!). However, you make a valid point and I will probably change my mind about qute spelling.
ReplyDeleteI think any time we spend showing love and kindness isn't wasted. This is the first year that I haven't volunteered working with elementary kids on their reading and writing skills, and I know what you mean--it does feel like a drop in the bucket--and maybe the kids won't remember what you have worked on, but I believe they remember that somebody cared enough to take time for them. I always felt like I wanted to gather some of these little ones up on my lap so that reading would be associated with a happy, cozy time--of course, you can't do that in public schools anymore, for very good reasons, but some of these kids were practically crying out for appropriate affection from an adult.
I hope you are right that somewhere a seed was planted that someone cared for them.
DeleteAs for the grammar, spelling, etc., I've mentioned before and I'll say it again, I'm confused by the the new "rules". I used to be top notch in that area, but not any more. There are too many exceptions or new rules to keep up. Language is a fluid thing, but I think changes are probably accelerated by our shorthand communication on our smart devices these days.
But here's another example on different ideas on grammar. A few years ago, Theo was taking a freshman English class in college. The teacher "corrected" many of his grammar mistakes and gave him bad marks on his papers. He ended up with a C in the class with a recommendation for remedial English. Since writing had never really been a problem before, he decided to ignore the advice and take the next semester in the regular sequence. The new professor liked his writing and his grammar and gave him an A for the course. After than, I gave up.
How aggravating for Theo. I guess I'm not sure what the new rules are, either, although at this stage of my life, I don't seem to encounter that a lot. So far my children's teachers have appreciated our attempts at encouraging good grammar; then again, we haven't gotten to the college stage of life yet. Much of my documentation at work involves clicking on standard phrasing, although I do free text my summary report. There isn't much need for me to write (except in your blog posts to tell you how much I abhor bad grammar, haha).
DeleteI don't think there was a lot of "qute" spelling when I was growing up. I wasn't very good at spelling as a child, but, English was my second language, back then, so that's my excuse. These days, I am constantly editing the writing of others as part of my work!
ReplyDeleteI was good at spelling, but spell check has weaken that.
DeleteI'm quite sure you had an impact, even if it wasn't necessarily the kind you imagined it would be. Just the fact that you cared enough to show up made a difference in their lives, I'm sure.
ReplyDeleteYou know, living in this neighborhood I get daily reminders about the mammoth scale of my privilege. The color of my skin, being able-bodied, coming from a financially stable family with two English speaking college educated (and beyond) parents... it's hard to over state it.
The neighborhood is gentrifying at an alarming rate now, and I worry over the fate of folks who are renters - I sure couldn't afford to live here at the current rates.
Anyhow, I never thought of the "cute" spelling thing as being problematic for people who were struggling to read, but it's a very good point. Imagine if English wasn't your first language...