This month’s Success Story celebrates the longtime partnership of learner Samantha and tutor Karen Carlisle. Karen and Sam were matched together way back in the summer of 2018. 

Sam’s goal at the time was to improve her reading and vocabulary skills, since Arabic was her primary language. Sam had been taking classes at SMCC and she and Karen began their relationship while Sam was reading the book Outliers for a class. The book had multiple euphemisms, which made for sometimes hilarious explanations.    

Sam and Karen continued to meet in the years that followed, taking breaks when Sam at times was gone for several months to visit family in Florida. Sam expanded her goals first to wanting to finish her degree at SMCC and then, in the last couple of years, to get new job certifications. She took classes and passed the Certified Residential Medication Aide exam. Then last month, Sam reached a new milestone when she passed the Certified Nurse Aide exam and now has her license. She points out that learning medical terms and measurements in English is very different from those terms in Arabic, which she spoke when she worked in Jordan before coming to the United States. Now she has set her sights on classes in phlebotomy. 

Sam states "the staff at Midcoast Literacy and teachers giving classes at SMCC have shown much helpfulness and patience with me."  Karen says "I am so impressed by Sam's work ethic and intelligence. Sam takes copious notes during our sessions and underlines words she wants to look up in Arabic. She would ask me to pronounce the words until she got them exactly correct. She talked often about wanting to improve her pronunciation and vocabulary in order to better fit into the world around her. Several years ago she brought a translation of the Quran to English with her to our sessions, and we read much of it together. She shared her love of Ramadan, which has just begun. There’s so much I have learned from her! We have great affection for each other. We call each other sisters."