Learning the ways of Nantucket also means learning English.

Written by Larry Lindner
Photography by Kit Noble

Like most of the students, she remains highly motivated. Now that her children are no longer babies, she continues to take classes once a week and meets one-on-one with a tutor, also courtesy of the LVA. Both classes and private tutoring are free to all comers.

Cezar Jenzura, another Atheneum student, arrived with his wife and daughters from Brazil in 2021. Back in Brazil, Jenzura taught computer and electronics technology and also developed systems and created software. When he arrived on Nantucket, he didn’t even know how to say the word “router.” Now, he helps develop sound systems, computer systems, and other complicated technologies for large smart homes that may need many access points, and he has begun classes for licensure as an electrician. “I think I learn English,” he says, “because it’s better to open the doors, for social community, for being alive in society—if I need to make an appointment in the hospital or even simple things, for example, to buy groceries in the market.”

LVA coordinator Cheryl Creighton marvels at the dedication of students like Calderon and Jenzura, although work schedules can make it difficult, she says. “Five minutes before it’s time to meet, someone will call and say, ‘Sorry, gotta get this fence. Boss won’t let me leave.’”

Volunteers started teaching the classes some 25 years ago, Creighton notes. LVA started out at the schools, but by 2005 the program needed more space and was able to move to the Atheneum.

It’s not surprising, and not just because people from other countries keep emigrating to Nantucket. The adult learners also gain community in the program. “You can see when a new person comes in they might be really quiet and just sit,” Creighton says. “And then, if they keep coming, they’re soon laughing and bantering.”

That camaraderie extends to the teachers and one-on-one tutors. “We all know each other pretty well,” intermediate teacher Jane Carlin says, “and we know about each other’s families. That’s part of our goal. We don’t want our students to feel like they have to be invisible and just do the work of the people who need them here.”

Carlin, like Cohen of Nantucket Public Schools, also talks about the value of having such a strong international community all learning English together on the island. “It’s just such an amazing group of people from all backgrounds, from all over the world,” she says. “We all really like each other. If it’s Zoom, they put their kids on, and we talk to the kids. ‘So-and-so just had her prom; here’s her prom dress.’ We laugh a lot and speak good-naturedly about our strengths and weaknesses.” She points out that they meet for potluck dinners on Children’s Beach sometimes, too—the teachers, the students, and their families.



Tutor Belinda Bralver has become good friends with one of her students, a Ukrainian woman named Olha Strukova. They get together for coffee every week.

Strukova made her way out of her country in 2022 with her daughter, Sofiia, and son, Prosha, after they saw bombs hitting the local airport from their apartment, about 300 miles southeast of Kyiv. “We were afraid for our lives,” she says. Her husband, a carpenter, had been working on Nantucket temporarily and was originally planning on going home that summer. Instead, with the war raging, he was able to bring his family over via a circuitous route that took them through Poland, Germany, and Mexico. For Strukova, who worked at a bank in Ukraine and now manicures nails in a salon, learning English has been somewhat difficult.

“I learned English in school in Ukraine many years ago,” she says, “but I have not practiced. I started the beginner class the third day I was here. I understand more than I can speak. But now, I’m not afraid. If I don’t understand something, I ask, ‘Repeat, please,’ and it’s okay.”

Her daughter, Sofiia, 12 going on 13 when she arrived, had a much easier time getting a handle on the language, not just because of her youth but also because students are almost automatically placed into ESL classes in the public school system as soon as they arrive. They don’t have to seek out the learning, as the adults do. She started with ESL when she landed on Nantucket in April 2022 and then worked with an online tutor for the summer when school let out. “When I came back to school,” she says, “I knew English. I was able to talk to people.”

As someone, whether a child or adult, moves forward with English, the rewards then find their way to all islanders. A few years ago, Carlin was in Marine Hardware looking for something her husband asked her to get, but she couldn’t remember what it was or how to identify it. A man who happened to be shopping there at the same time was able to help her figure out what she was seeking, which was a pack of finishing nails. It turned out he had been one of her students 20 years earlier.

“His first language was Spanish,” she says, “and here he was teaching me something in English. Even more important, it was so great to catch up with an old friend. We talked about what was going on with our families and our lives in general.”



In other words, he had very much become, to paraphrase the school system’s Cohen, part of the fabric of diversity that enriches a community.

Volunteer to Teach English

“We always need more volunteers to tutor and teach,” says Cheryl Creighton, the coordinator for the Literacy Volunteers of the Atheneum. The need is greatest for year-rounders. She notes, “There’s an abundance of summer people, but you have to be here for a certain amount of time to build a relationship.”

You don’t need experience as a teacher or knowledge of a second language. For more information, head to nantucketatheneum.org and click on “Attend,” then “Volunteer,” then “Literacy Volunteers of the Atheneum.”