The man who teaches the tutors
He loves learning, and has learned how to share
By Robin Miller/City Editor
A s a young boy growing up in Laredo, Texas, there was one school subject that Frank Martinez disliked above all others - English.
"I quit school in the seventh-grade," the now 70-year-old longtime Vacaville resident said. "I didn't like it and English was the worst of all."
When his father - the sole breadwinner for the family - fell ill, Martinez said he had his opportunity.
"I went to work in the fields … when Dad was better, I didn't want to go back to school. "
How ironic, then, that some six decades later, teaching English is the pastime that gives Martinez his greatest sense of fulfillment and reward.
Martinez has been a literacy tutor with the Solano County Library since 2003. He's so good at it, and enjoys it so much that he is now also a mentor to other tutors and teaches the only group-setting literacy class in the library system.
"It makes me feel great when I see them learning and getting better and better," he said. "It makes me feel like I want to continue on."
For Martinez, the turn-around in his attitude toward learning came many years ago, thanks in part to his desire to serve in the military.
"I was able to pass the Air Force entrance exam, but I realized right away that I was going to get nowhere without an education," he said. Thus began a lifelong love of learning. He earned his GED and even completed some college courses, eventually earning an associate's degree from Solano Community College some 20-plus years ago.
During that time, he wore many hats - as a military policeman, a technician on military communications and radar equipment and an interpreter in a military auditor's class. In civilian life, he worked in landscaping, retiring from the city of Vacaville's parks department in 1998.
It was a busy life that took him from America to Germany and all over the world, before he settled in Vacaville. All of that experience now comes to use in his work as a tutor, he said.
"All of it helps me connect with people," he explained. "I get people from all walks of life and it is amazing to see them want to learn."
Vacaville resident Francisco Martinez is a literacy tutor with the Solano County Library Literacy Program. (Ryan Chalk/The Reporter)
His first students were a husband and wife who had moved to the area from Nicaragua. Neither spoke much English but with Martinez' fluency in Spanish, they were able to connect and begin to master their new country's language. Martinez said he still hears from both of them, and in fact still tutors the wife who has come to master basic English language.
Last year, he taught his first group lessons, taking on a class of 12 people and teaching them to speak, read and write the language.
The best part of it all is when he sees his students grow in understanding.
"I will write something on the board and put a mistake on purpose and they are so nice, they don't want to correct me but pretty soon they say "excuse me, but is that right?'" he said. "The feeling it gives me is great. It excites me. It is such a feeling of accomplishment."
The worst part of the work? "The schedule," he said. "Sometimes it is hard for them to make it. They are leaving work, or they have transportation problems or whatever."
Learning the language takes a real commitment, he said. "But I tell my students, if they want it, they can get it," he said.
And Martinez vows to be there to help any student who wants to learn the language.
"I guess I will keep doing this for as long as they want me," he said with a smile. "Or at least as long as I am healthy and not too old and senile."
Robin Miller can be reached at citydesk@thereporter.com.
