Side by side, opening doors

LOWELL -- Kler Htoo's race to success begins when the burning afternoon sun hits Cross Street.
The French doors to a corner room in the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Center, where local Burmese students and their tutors meet three times a week, open at 4 p.m. Htoo always arrives by 3:30.
When arriving in the U.S. in 2010 from a Burmese refugee camp in Thailand, he barely finished second grade because he kept failing his classes, said Kler, a Lowell High School freshman. Some people at the camp had tried to teach him.
"Not too much help," Kler said.
It's hard to catch up with his classmates now. He sometimes has difficulty memorizing math formulas, said his tutor, James Thawnghmung. But Kler isn't giving up.

James Thawnghmung works with Lowell High freshman Kler Htoo, 14. More tutors are needed. SUN / JULIA MALAKIE

Farther back in the room, Lowell High sophomore Nawnaw Paw often keeps her nose buried in a book. She remembers her first day of school four years ago, when her teacher took her by the arm to let her know she needed to move to a different classroom. She did know that the school bell, which she had never heard in a Burmese refugee camp, signaled time to switch classes.
The fast-talking teenager no longer needs hand signals to communicate with her classmates. Some English sentences in textbooks are still confusing to her, but she knows she can always ask a tutor who speaks her language.
"School cannot afford to teach one on one," Thawnghmung said.
And giving the students much-needed undivided attention to help them

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The Burmese free tutoring program that a group of local immigrants launched in January continues to grow. It started out with one student who needed help and with Thawnghmung's wife, Ardeth, serving as the tutor. On the first day of school this month, 35 students showed up while only two volunteer tutors were in the room. Ardeth Thawnghmung, an associate professor of political science at UMass Lowell, has managed to recruit some additional tutors since then,

Lee Say and her husband, Leep Ber, of Lowell have their son come to the after-school tutoring program. Say, who taught in their refugee camp in Thailand, is volunteering herself. SUN / JULIA MALAKIE

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including a Burmese immigrant who is pursuing a master's degree in education at a college in Boston. But the program could use more help. The students are mostly in middle school. Burmese refugees began arriving in Lowell from refugee camps in Thailand in 2007 after decades of civil war in their homeland. Some of them have left Lowell for other refugee destinations, such as Texas, where the cost of living is lower, Ardeth Thawnghmung said.
The Burmese population in Lowell now stands at about 200, and nearly half of them are children under age 18, according to James Si Si Aung of Lowell. Aung, who works for the state Department of Public Health's refugee and immigrant-health program, volunteers many hours providing assistance to

LIFTING UP, ONE ON ONE: Ardeth Thawnghmung, left, who started the tutoring program for local Burmese, holds her son, Vaal, 6, at the Lowell center Wednesday. She's joined by her husband, James, who is working with Kler Htoo, right, a Lowell High freshman. Htoo only went to school in Burma up to the second grade. SUN / JULIA MALAKIE

fellow Burmese refugees with various needs from making doctors appointments to filling out legal documents. Some students bring their younger siblings to the tutoring program, Ardeth Thawnghmung said. On a recent Wednesday afternoon, a fourth-grader and her kindergartner brother quietly read books by their older friends. The books are written in English, and the young ones speak the language nearly flawlessly.
But things are much harder for older students. Many have academically fallen far behind their American counterparts while in refugee camps. There are fifth- and sixth-graders who can't do multiplication, Thawnghmung said. They also can't get help from their parents, most of whom never finished second grade.
Lee Say, a mother of an eighth-grader from Lowell, for one, said she only has seventh-grade education and is grateful that her child has access to free tutoring. The students cannot only get help for themselves, but also share knowledge with other Burmese students, Say said through translation by Thawnghmung.
Those who have learning disabilities never obtained the help they needed. Students who have done well in school also must overcome the language handicap and differences in learning styles between the two countries.
"In the United States, you have to do more thinking," rather than simply memorizing books, Nawnaw said.
Nawnaw is now fluent in English, but still has some difficulty understanding textbooks. Memorizing words and phrases also take her twice as long as her American classmates, she said. But that makes her want to work even harder toward her goal, to enroll college and find work that "has to something to do with medical" fields.
All students come to the tutoring program at their own will. Most walk from home. They show up without any incentives, a testament to their desire to succeed, Thawnghmung said.
Thawnghmung, who came to the U.S. in 1990 as a foreign student, and five other leaders of Lowell's Burmese community are also committed to assisting fellow immigrants in any way they can.
"We are considering forming a formal organization so we can be all part of it," Thawnghmung said.
Being together -- "that's what we are all about," she said.
The tutoring program is looking for volunteers. Tutors do not need to speak Burmese, but those who are capable of teaching middle school and high school math are particularly needed. Those interested may contact Thawnghmung at 978-452-6144 or by email at ardeth.thawnghmung@gmail.com.