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John Corona helps Maria del Rosario work through a newspaper during one of his teaching sessions. Left John Corona gathers up material getting ready for a teaching session. |
FLAIR program at Blanchard Library
September 02, 2015
Santa Paula News
By Wendy Bastone
Where did John Corona, Super-Tutor come from?
What has motivated him to tutor over 25 students in the last 9 years?
John loves to tell you, “I was born at Limoneira.”
That was in 1938, and John attended Saticoy Elementary School, then Cabrillo Jr. Hi, and graduated from Ventura High School in 1956. After Ventura College, he went on to Cal-Poly, S.L.O., but left early to join the Air Force.
From ’59 through ’63, he served in the U.S. Air Force in Armament & Electronics. He worked on the F105 fighters, repairing the radar and computers. Two daughters born during his time in the Air Force. Cathy was born in Nevada in 1962 (the only “foreigner” in the family), and Linda two years later in California.
After finishing his stint in the military, John worked 15 years as a surveyor for Ventura County, then took off to more adventurous places! He worked in the Santa Barbara Channel, “land and sea surveying” to help the oil companies place drilling platforms on the spots the geologists had mapped out. They had to work even in storms, surveying 9 square miles of ocean.
From time to time he worked in San Francisco replacing Navigation Lights in San Francisco Bay. It was like marking traffic lanes in the water—showing the ships where they could sail. He worked in the Marshall Islands, surveying 11 atolls to install fiber optics for the Army.
When retiring, John thought, “I need another job. Retirement is a time to do something for someone else.” He didn’t want any pay. He tried out Meals on Wheels and Food Share, became a member of the Elks Club, and the VFW of Ventura. But an ad in The Santa Paula Times caught his eye and drew him into the FLAIR program at Blanchard Library – Teaching adults to read hit his hot button.
His first student was Evangelina, and he has continued to work with her for 9 years now! He enjoyed that so much that he asked for another learner, and got going with two. A month later he was ready for a third student! But he waited . . . and waited . . . and no one was assigned to him, so he decided to recruit his own students ---– and John Corona, Super-Tutor was born. John has had up to 11 students at a time, over these 9 years.
And all of his students adore him, and tell you how much they have learned from him! He always tries to keep his students up on current topics, and they often read and discuss newspapers. Some had to learn how to navigate the layout of a newspaper first: down the columns, not across the whole page. Read the titles, look at the pictures and captions first. Understand what commas and periods are for. Some love to do the crossword puzzles with him. With others he reads and discusses the articles on politics, and the opinion section.
No surprise, being a surveyor, John loves maps, and brings them into most of his lessons. But whatever his students need, that’s where John goes for their English lesson. One student needed to pass a Home Health Aide exam, so they studied for that. Now they are working on the renewal for her CNA license.
Another student started coming to English classes at the library, pushing her 2-year-old in a stroller all the way from 14th St. She asked John to help her pass the Driver’s Test (in English), and he did. But he didn’t stop there. Once she had her permit, he also taught her how to drive, and she’s now able to run her 4 kids all over town without a stroller! In addition, he’s helped several learners pass the U.S. Citizenship Test, and with the elections coming, they’re reading up on the candidates.
But tutoring 25 students one-on-one was STILL not enough for John Corona!! When he first started tutoring, he asked if he could observe one of the ESL teachers. She had a class of 25 -30 students, and the ones with the least English clustered in the back. When the teacher asked, “Everyone understand?” and they would all nod politely, but John asked a couple students in the cluster what the teacher had said, and realized they were missing a lot.
With the teacher’s permission, he started translating for them. That morphed into his own class, where he has used both Spanish and English to get the students up and running in English, ever since.
The students all say they feel fortunate to work with John. He’s a good teacher and lots of fun!! John Corona CARES for his students!
And HEY! His 77th birthday is coming soon, and he’s not letting anyone forget!! Remember, John loves barbeque and beer!
