computer labs at the Carolina Apartments

For about almost a year I have been working closely with a little refugee boy from Carolina Apartments. He fled Burma in an attempt to escape the mass genocide enacted by the Burmese government. As I try to help him adapt to the United States and his elementary school, I realize there are so much challenges up ahead of him. He is a very introverted little boy, and I had a hard time getting him to open up to me. I realized that this boy has very little trust for new people, and I don't blame him after the things that he has been through.

An example of this is when I had once taken him and his little brother to the IMAX theatre in downtown Raleigh for as a special treat and reward on completion of his homework assignments I have been giving him. At the time the boy was 8 years old, and his brother 3. The doorman at the theatre reached out to pet the 3 year old little brother out of adoration, however my boy had instinctively given him an untrusting look and pulled his little brother towards him. This was not only a sign that he was a precocious little individual, but that the harsh conditions in Burma and the refugee camps has caused him to be a bit too cynical for his age.

I noticed that my boy was really excited to start his tutoring sessions in the computer labs. When I went to pick him up the first day, he had his hair gelled back (which is something he seems to rarely do, perhaps an indication that he feels like this is a special day). Everytime I come to tutor him, I always see him peering out the window with his little brother, waiting for my arrival. On this day, he was standing around outside his door, with all his materials in his hand.

I noticed that the use of the computer immediately captivated his attention. He usually does not enjoy working on English and grammar, but on this particular day, he had so much fun using the mouse clicker to choose the correct answer when we played multiple choice games on the computer. He is just like any other kid, in which he finds so much interest in things that are new.

I recently set up an email account for him, so that he could stay in touch with me throughout the week. I told him that I would be emailing him everyday with a short list of questions about his day, that I would like him to answer. I am hoping that this will teach him how to use his Karen-English dictionary as reference whenever he has to write to me, which will ultimately help him build up his ability to structure complete sentences. I am having a hard time however in getting him motivated to go through the trouble of doing this.

I have put him on a reward system, in which whenever he earns 100 stickers, I will take him to the movies. Obviously, I sort of inflated the use of stickers, rewarding him too many stickers as once because I really want to take him to these movies very badly! However, I think I need to regress on doing this, because sometimes he does not always complete his promised work. I hope to see him continually improve, but it can be disappointing when his ambition is lacking in comparison to mine. I am trying to learn the struggles and discouragements that my boy goes through on a daily basis, and I realize that human rights means more than just public education provided for everyone. People like the little boy that I teach does not have enough educational background to get him jumpstarted, and therefore I think thats why he finds a lot of apathy within the public realm.