"I Go by Mickey"

Maureen Christiansen

I Go by Mickey

Mickey at the Open Door Learning Center
(Provided by Mickey)

I’m Maureen Christiansen, I go by Mickey, so you can call me Mickey. Except Dan, you’ll have to call me grandma. Well, when I… how many years ago? six? seven years ago, I was laid off from my job at the time of the financial crisis, and after that, I actually took a class teaching English as a foreign language, thinking I might go overseas to work. Once I got my certificate, actually before I got my certificate, I had to do student teaching, and one of the places I student taught was here at The Open Door Learning Center on Lake Street (1), which is part of the Minnesota Literacy Council. I was really impressed by the work they did there, their curriculum, the way they had it all laid out, and how they use volunteers. They use so many volunteers and have a lot of people who are willing to volunteer, so it’s a real nice group of people to work with, I think. After I finished my student teaching, I never did go overseas. I ended up staying home. (laughs) But I did continue to volunteer and teach here because it was something I enjoyed and it is a very satisfying volunteer position, I think. The staff gives you a lot of support and they have the curriculum set up pretty well, so you're not on your own that way. You get a chance to interact individually with students and kind of do your own thing as far as how you teach and what you teach, so that’s how I started! And I’ve been here ever since. I’ve been in a number of positions. I started out as an assistant teacher, I think it was an intermediate class. Then, I assisted in the preliterate class for a while. I worked in the GED for a little while, but then they changed that to having a certified GED teacher, an on staff teaching. I have my ESL (2), my English as a Second Language certificate, but I don't have a teaching license. So, at that time I started helping with the citizenship class. After that, they needed a regular volunteer for the advance class so I started doing that, and I still help with citizenship class occasionally.

University of Wyoming

University of Wyoming logo

(Provided by http://www.uwyo.edu)

You know, I didn't actually ever really go to school for teaching, but I have done a lot of teaching in my life. I started out in college as an English major, I guess thinking that I would teach, but I kind of didn't go down that road. I actually quit school and got married and all that stuff. Then, when I went back to college, I got interested in history. So, I was taking history and then went to graduate school. I was doing English history and American Studies. While I was there, I went to graduate school in the University of Wyoming and became a teaching assistant. So then, I started a lot of teaching as a TA in classes. Eventually, I actually started teaching history courses at the University of Wyoming. So, I had that experience of teaching before I started this volunteer position.

When I Was Laid Off

After I finished my graduate school, I worked for a conservation non-profit, which what we did was try to get land into public use so it wouldn’t be developed, that kind of thing. So, as a non-profit, a lot of our funds came from government and donations. So, when in 2008 when the crash, or Recession came, many non-profits state funds dried up and our donations dried up, so we had to do a large restructuring, the company did. They had to eliminate a lot of offices and a lot of jobs. So, my office basically was eliminated, so my job was eliminated. So, I was laid-off and, you know as I said, I always thought of maybe going overseas to teach, so I just thought maybe that would be a good opportunity to do something like that. But I never went, never did go overseas. (Upbeat) I still think about it sometimes (laughs). But I haven’t. (laughs)

Definitely a Very Diverse Area!

Mickey celebrating with her students
(Provided by Mickey)

Depending on where the center is geographically, the makeup of classes change too. Here we do have a lot of Africans, a lot of Somali people and some South Americans, some Mexicans, the largest I believe is Africans. We do occasionally have some Asians, particularly in the citizenship class. We had a large group of Tibet people and they must have immigrated at the same time and here long enough to apply for the citizenship. [About East Lake Street Learning Center] This is kind of an interesting place. I spend a lot of time at libraries, (laughs) that’s just what I do (laughs), but anyway, because I usually go to the Excelsior library, which is close to my hometown [Minnetonka], and just the whole difference of the clientele of the libraries, you know, it’s just incredible, but it’s interesting that’s for sure. But yeah, this is definitely a very diverse area.

I Had Two Hours

At the level I’m teaching now, I don’t very often find out too much personally about my students. Except, I remember this one thing that really stuck in my mind. (chuckles) I don’t know if any of you have heard about the Japanese Internment during World War Two? Where the Japanese were put into, basically, internment camps and concentration camps. We were reading a story about, in an advanced class, people’s personal memories about that happening to them and one of the questions for the discussion was, “How would you feel if you were suddenly told you had two weeks to pack up and get everything in order and move to some strange place?”  One man said, well, you know, I had two hours, and he was someone who had immigrated and escaped from the Somalia Civil War (3) and he said, “I had two hours to get home, get my kids and get ready and get everything I needed and I carried them on my back for two days.” You know, it’s certainly not right to have to pack up your home, where you’ve lived forever, in two weeks let alone two hours like this guy said. I don’t hear a lot of these stories, but I suspect that there are a lot of people who’ve had a hard time getting out of their circumstances.

I’ve never been to school before and I just love this!

Sylviano, was his name, he was in my class for a long time then he moved onto GED and I don’t know whatever happened to him. That’s one thing that I don’t like is that, you know, when people leave you never know what happens to them. I’ve always wondered because he was really a good writer and I don’t know that he’d ever be able to do that, you know, as a career or anything, but he really enjoyed it and he really was a good at it. I’ve always been curious as to whatever happened to him. A different time, there was this guy that I was working with in citizenship, and he made a big impression on me. He was in his early-mid thirties, I believe, and had never been to school before. He came to study for the citizenship class. Part of the citizenship test is you have to be able to read and write and he didn’t know how to read or write. In his whole life, he’d never been to school before. We worked really, really hard with him and it was incredible how quickly he picked up all this stuff. How hard he worked at it, you know, and it just really dawned on me that this guy has never gone to school, I mean thats kind of a concept that we just don’t have, you know, never having gone to school. He came from Africa, I’m not sure where in Africa, but I think maybe it was Somalia. He had married a woman who was here. She was an English speaker, so his spoken english was pretty good and that’s probably why he never really felt the need to learn how to read and write, you know, because his wife probably did all the reading and writing that was necessary for him. But anyway, he took the citizenship test and passed everything but the reading or writing. If you take the citizenship test and just miss one or two things, you can come back again in around three months and take it again without having to start the whole process over. He then had three months to learn how to read and write and, like I said, we really worked hard. When he went back to take his test, he passed the reading but he didn’t pass the writing. So, he will have to take it again, but having gone through this whole process, it was just incredible how excited he was about learning. He said that, “I’ve never been to school before and I just love this!” (laughs) Eventually, I’m sure he’ll take the citizenship test again. He was able to memorize, you know, if you don’t read and write, your memory has to be really good and I was just amazed at how he could remember things. He remembered, without reading and writing, all of the answers to all of the questions. So, yeah, he is another guy I think I will always remember.

Satisfaction From Helping

Pictures of volunteers at the Open Door Learning Center
(Provided by Mickey)

For older people it’s one of the most difficult things to do, to learn a different language. I had some older Somali African women who were not able to read or write in their own language. They came here and learned English plus how to read and write at the same time. I just have an awful lot of respect for what they do. (chuckles) For me, that's what I enjoy and appreciate about volunteering here. I can’t speak for others [volunteers], but I get a good satisfaction from helping people and also from seeing how people progress and learn. I just love it.

Footnotes:

1) The Open Door Learning Center: An organization ran mainly by volunteers to provide free adult education classes so their students can succeed in work and in life. One of many places they meet is at 2700 East Lake Street Minneapolis, MN.

2) ESL: English as a Second Language. Helps people with different native languages learn and speak English.

3) Somali Civil War: In 1970 Siad Barre, president of Somalia, proclaimed a socialist state, paving the way for close relations with the USSR. In 1977, with the help of Soviet arms, Somalia attempted to seize the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, but was defeated thanks to Soviet and Cuban backing for Ethiopia, which had turned Marxist. Somalia became a war zone causing millions to flee to other countries.

Story Facilitators:

Ilhan Mohamed

Daniel Johnson