General News
Dial-A-Teacher links with library via Internet
Nov 15, 2007 11:49 AM
Intern supervisor Cleyon Caesar (second from right) helps interns (from left) Rami Mohamed, Carlos Gomez and Gabriel Pena collate the packets.
The UFT has formed a partnership to link its homework help telephone line with the New York Public Library’s homework Web site.
The link, launched Oct. 30, connects the union’s Dial-A-Teacher service to a chat room at www.homeworkNYC.org.
Staffed with bilingual teachers who, in addition to English, speak 12 different languages, Dial-A-Teacher has been assisting students and parents for 27 years.
More than 1,000 students or their parents call the service daily, and receive help with math, reading, writing or science assignments.
Often, parents who call understand the work their child has been assigned but not the text because English isn’t their first language, said program coordinator Karen Butler-Brock.
Even English-speaking parents, especially those with kids in elementary school, are having difficulty with new curricula, like Everyday Math, that have been being rolled out in schools, she said.
“For a lot of it, parents are familiar with it to a point; but the work is done in a very different manner than they are accustomed to learning,” Butler-Brock said.
Teachers in the homework help center are trained to talk to parents and explain what the assignment is asking, and what it should look like when it is completed.
Dial-A-Teacher can be accessed at the library’s Web site, or by calling 1-212-777-3380 Monday through Thursday, from 4 to 7 p.m.
Besides the team of public school teachers who work one on one with callers, DAT has also been working one on one with a few selected high school student interns to give them valuable on-the-job training.
“We teach them office protocol, business etiquette, and just basic business skills,” said Francinea Williams, office manager for 10 years.
Long after they leave, former interns call to fill her in on their achievements. One who came in saying she wanted to get her pilot’s license went on to do just that, said Williams, emphasizing the foundation she strives to build for young people starting in the workplace.
“I have yet to have one who didn’t do well,” she said.
When an intern starts work there, Williams gives them a charge: “This is a school to learn how to interact in the business world,” she tells them. “What you do here will transcend to other offices and businesses, no matter what you do.”
Boxes filled with Dial-A-Teacher materials are packed to send out to teachers across the city.
The interns are selected from among the brightest students in a career training program at Murry Bergtraum HS. They are typically hired in their junior year and work as interns for two years.
Gabriel Pena, an intern starting his second year, said working with teachers and staff at Dial-A-Teacher has taught him how to take responsibility and work better in cooperation with others.
Before, he said, he had little patience to resolve disagreements with others. But he’s proud of the way he handled himself when some co-workers disagreed with the way he was organizing materials to be distributed in schools earlier this year.
“When someone gives you an attitude at work you just have to learn how to take it and just continue doing your job,” he said. “Don’t get on their bad side because that’s when your bad side comes out.”
Like Pena, Dial-A-Teacher interns Carlos Gomez and Rami Mohamed are student government leaders at Murry Bergtraum.
