By Learning to Help Her Child, this Mother Helped Herself
Norma Shaw always managed to get by with her reading and writing skills—until the day she had trouble tutoring a fourth-grade student.
A volunteer at her son's elementary school in San Leandro, Calif., Shaw, then 43, was working with one of her son's classmates. She took half an hour to write a simple sentence for the child. Shaw thought: "Oh my God, I have no grasp of this fourth-grade material." She said to herself. "This is not OK! I can't help my son, and I can't help this boy who really needs me."
That insight motivated Shaw to call the telephone number printed on the flyer that came home from her son's school. The number rang at Project Literacy, a ProLiteracy America affiliate based at the San Leandro Public Library.
"It was a really big step for me," Shaw says eight years later. "I thought I was just going to learn to read and write more proficiently and help my kids do their homework, but it became an opportunity, because someone saw something in me."
That someone was Linda Sakamoto-Jahnke, then the library's literacy coordinator. Sakamoto-Jahnke encouraged Shaw to continue her basic literacy tutoring long enough to earn a high school diploma. It took three years, but Shaw graduated from the San Leandro Adult School.
For many adult learners, that might have been enough. Not for Shaw. “I needed to do something more,” she says. “I needed to do something that was really going to improve my life and contribute to the world!” With Sakamoto-Jahnke’s support, Shaw set her sights on returning to college. She had tried college when she was 20, but it didn’t work out.
About the same time, Shaw met Kathleen Archambeau, an admissions counselor at Holy Names University in Oakland. Archambeau took an interest in Shaw's situation and encouraged her to enroll even though, as a working mother, her challenges were formidable. Yet Shaw has finished courses in English, math, psychology, western civilization, and Hebrew scriptures. If all goes well, she will earn a bachelor's degree within two years.
Progress hasn't always been easy, however. Shaw recently became nervous over an assignment to write a thesis statement for a college essay. Helped by a Project Literacy tutor, Shaw learned how to write the thesis correctly. In turn, Shaw helped her eighth-grade son complete a similar assignment.
Shaw hopes to find a job in development and literacy for a government agency or nonprofit organization after graduating from college.
"Working with people is my strength," she says. "People need to have people like me who understand their struggles and care about them."
Marion Handa, Shaw's tutor, believes Shaw's career goal is "totally doable." Handa, the clerk for the City of San Leandro, took notice when Shaw recently decided she wanted to run a marathon. Shaw found a training program, joined, worked out regularly, and achieved her goal.
"That's the kind of person she is," Handa says. "Norma has the ability to go after what she wants. She's very motivated. I see her potential as limitless."
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