SLATE Real Basics Computer Workshop is Rewarding

Each month, I’ll be sharing a “Great Story” about my service with AmeriCorps St. Louis at SLATE Missouri Career Center. Below is my first story, about the basic computer skills workshops I’ve been teaching.

My first month or so at SLATE has been an eye-opening and rewarding experience. When I think to a time that exemplifies both of these overarching themes, I think to the Real Basics Computer Skills workshop I have taught.

Attendees range in age, sex, race and gender, but all have one thing in common: they know very little about the basic operation of computers. As the students trickle into the workshop room, a small classroom with nine computers, I greet them and tell them to have a seat at one of the computers. I watch as they sit dumbfounded by the machine in front of them. It appears that they are scared to touch it, as if it is an explosive with a lit fuse.

When I begin to deliver the information to them, their eyes widen. Many gaze into the screen, jaws dropped with amazement at the white arrow moving across the screen, along with their movement of the mouse. The mice, by the way, have been the older sets’ most challenging skill to learn. Aged hands, often arthritic from years of labor, have a hard time maneuvering the small, delicate electronic devices. Patience is practiced here on both the student and teacher’s end, especially when it comes to the dreaded double-click!

With a few laughs and practice, by the end of the hour-and-a-half session, about half the class feels comfortable with the materials. Others, still unsure about the new world of technology that has been unleashed upon them, ask if they can come back next week. Many do. In fact, for the three weeks I’ve taught the class, a few students have been to each session. They are slowly improving and arrive with a positive, dedicated demeanor that makes me happy to assist them for as long as it may take.

This experience is eye-opening because, having grown up in a generation that was born double-clicking, I’ve never had the difficulty that some students do. It’s hard to imagine what it must be like for people who have gone more than half a century from not needing or wanting to touch a computer to now relying on the mystery machine to find their next paycheck. I am thankful that this potentially frustrating circumstance has not, at least on the surface, ruined the students’ desire to continue learning and practicing this evolving technology.

Coming up next: I’m still working on finishing Deepak Chopra’s new book…a review and insight on that to come!