Bernadette Diaz is a volunteer tutor, our reading specialist, and she supervises our after-school tutoring at St. Catherine-St. Lucy. Bernadette spoke about volunteerism before she even spoke about her expertise and her professional career. Serving others, social justice, community, and faith have always been among her core values, so she actively sought out Learning Edge to further her volunteerism.
Bernadette has worked as an educator in under-resourced communities her entire career. Bernadette’s love of literacy was ignited as a post-collegiate Jesuit Volunteer Corps teacher working with under-employed adults. After teaching for several years, receiving a Master’s in Education, and raising her own family, Bernadette pursued a specialization in reading.
As Learning Edge’s reading specialist, Bernadette is often one of the first adults in the program our students get to know. She administers beginning-of-the-year reading assessments to all of our students in kindergarten through 6th grade, helping to identify areas in which they may need reading support. Once a student is identified–and she stressed how important early identification is so we can lay a strong foundation–Bernadette works with their tutor to provide specific tools that aid in the reading process. But more than anything, Bernadette encourages tutors to instill in students an enjoyment of reading and a growth mindset so they remain engaged and positive.
Bernadette praised her fellow “phenomenal tutors” and the organization’s mission for addressing what she referred to as a civil rights issue: education. Bernadette described the benefit of connection as a means of understanding and addressing injustice. “How we learn about one another is by being close to one another,” she explained, referencing author Bryan Stevenson as a proponent of this concept. “This happens for us, for our volunteers–it’s so important we meet our neighbors and continue to serve as a resource to forward education.”