It's ironic, Bella Vistan Chuck Kovach said, that he can share many things with his students but he can't share the reason he chose to teach them. As a volunteer with the Benton County Literacy Council, Kovach signed a contract promising he wouldn't talk to his adult literacy students about religion, so he can't tell them that his religious upbringing taught him to give back. He can still give back though.
Kovach has been teaching adults to read for 12 years. He's had about 30 students.
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"It's extremely satisfying," he said. "They want to learn and they work so hard."
Right now he has seven students, but that includes two couples who come to lessons together. They meet at the Literacy Council office, just off the square in Bentonville. Several of Kovach's students are Vietnamese and work long hours in nail saloons, he said.
Scheduling literacy students can be tricky, Coordinator Sharon Southworth confirmed, because most of the students are also working full time and many of them have children at home. Kovach doesn't mind coming in to meet students early so they can go on to work after their lessons. Not all retirees like the morning hours, she said.
Kovach has always been a volunteer. He was a master gardener, first in Pennsylvania and then in Arkansas. At almost 80 years old, he can no longer work in the garden, but he takes his literacy students out on walks to the square where he can teach them the names of flowers.
His career was in education, as a teacher, a coach and finally a principal. He always loved teaching. But the workbooks used in the council office are so easy to follow, anyone can teach, he said. There's a two-hour training for new tutors.
There are some native English speakers among the students at the Literacy Council, but they are outnumbered by the students who learned English as a second or even a third language. Many of those students are literate in their native language and that makes learning to read in English a little easier, Southworth said.
While all the students want to learn, they don't all have the same goals. Kovach has helped students who need to pass a driver's test and he's helped several pass their citizenship test. They start with very little knowledge of the American system and, even though the tutors have agreed not to talk about politics, together they work through the questions that might be on the test.
Some students are working towards a GED so they can get a better job, Southworth said. She is impressed not only by the students she's met but by the children of those students. Even with their own language challenges, the children of Literacy Council students become good students themselves. Many of them go on to college.
Kovach saw the daughter of one of his students on the news recently. She has become an immigration lawyer.
The tutors also learn about other cultures, they agreed. Kovach said his Vietnamese students won't shake hands. It's just not done in their culture. He taught a Vietnamese woman who always wore a jacket, even during the summer months. He discovered she wasn't cold, she was modest.
Potluck meals around the Council office are educational, Southworth said. Students bring food from their homelands.
Sometimes, Kovach added, when his students give him food to taste, his wife makes him eat it on the porch.
There's a waiting list of about 90 students, Southworth said, and the council has about 40 volunteers. She would like to recruit more volunteer tutors so she can match them with potential students. She understands that working full time can make volunteering difficult because she started as a tutor when she was working for Walmart.
"I would be so tired at the end of the day," she remembers, "but I would come in and I always felt more energized." The students would be so appreciative, it made it all worthwhile, she said.
"It can be hard here, but where they come from it's harder. We don't realize how fortunate we are," she said.
Although they don't talk about religion, Kovach has gotten to know Buddhists, Sunnis and one Ethiopian Baptist. He's come a long way from the ethnic neighborhoods in Pittsburg where he grew up and he has enjoyed the journey.
To volunteer as a tutor, call Southworth at 479-273-3486.
General News on 08/21/2019