Near the corner of North and Greenmount Avenues, across the street from the historic Greenmount Cemetery, you will find the Greenmount Senior Center (GSC), a recreation center dedicated to Korean residents of the Baltimore area. Though it’s not in Baltimore's best neighborhood, the center itself is clean, modern, and well-lit.
If you walk into one of the classrooms at the GSC at about 11:00 a.m. Tuesday through Thursday, you will see a group of 8 or 9 Korean seniors hard at work, determined to learn English. This is my class. They may be working quietly in pairs, they may be amusing their classmates with anecdotes about their life in the USA, or they may be sitting quietly in the back of the room, just trying to absorb it all. There are quite a few there who are already US citizens, others are working hard at earning their citizenship. Some have adopted American names; others, I address by their Korean ones. Though their skill levels are mixed, they all share a dedication to improving their English and therefore improving their lives in the USA. Most of them rarely miss a class as they tackle the daunting task of mastering a new language later in life.
The Greater Homewood Adult Literacy & ESOL Program teaches at many locations outside the four classrooms at our Homewood office in the basement of the University Baptist Church. The Greenmount Senior center is just one of them. We have sponsored classes at GSC for about two years, and I have been teaching there for one. The senior population at GSC is quite a contrast to the diverse and generally much younger population we teach here at our Homewood site, and it took me a while to adapt to working with them. Now I can say I learn at least as much from them as they do from me, if not more.
Submitted by Christian Clausen
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