From Ukraine with love
For PTC student Lyuda Bentsiy, teaching is more than a job

Like many technical college students, Lyuda Bentsiy balances her time at school with a full-time job.

Americans who aren’t from the South often joke that they need a translator when they move here. While it’s easy for us to laugh about the regional differences in our accents, immigrants and other foreign visitors often miss the punch line because they don’t understand English well—or at all.

Lyuda Bentsiy knows firsthand the frustration and aggravation that comes with not being able to speak the native tongue. A Ukrainian immigrant who moved to Sacramento with her parents when she was 8 years old, Lyuda (pronounced LOO-duh) spoke little to no English upon her arrival in the States.

Now 20 and finishing up her associate degree in Public Service majoring in Early Care and Education at Piedmont Technical College, Bentsiy remembers vividly how difficult it was to fit in, make friends and do schoolwork when she was still learning English as a child. “People who’ve never had to learn another language don’t understand just how challenging it can be, especially for children,” she says, now in immaculate English and with only a barely detectable accent. “When I came to the U.S., it was very hard. All those teachers I had who helped me learn English were inspirations to me.”

Today Bentsiy herself is an inspiration to 28 foreign-language students at Cherokee Trail Elementary School in Donalds, S.C., where she teaches English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) five days a week in addition to taking classes full-time. “I have my own little classroom, and the children are pulled from their mainstream classes to work with me for one period a day,” she says. “It’s just so satisfying because I feel like I’m giving back by helping others do what I did, to overcome the language barrier.”

Two of her ESOL students are Korean, and the other 26 are, coincidentally, Russian or Ukrainian. “I grew up speaking Ukrainian in school and with my family, but I also know Russian,” she says. “That was always the language I used when I talked to my friends.”

Like that of so many other technical college students here and across the country, Bentsiy’s story is typical and at the same time extraordinary. Her days are spent working and her nights studying. She’s overcome more than her fair share of obstacles just to have the opportunity to attend college. She sacrifices her personal time to earn an education that will ultimately improve her skills, her marketability, her pay and her quality of life.

Yet despite the hardships and the lack of free time her busy schedule affords, Bentsiy is a role model in and out of the classroom. In addition to serving as a Presidential Ambassador for Piedmont Tech and teaching Sunday School every week, she also is a member of Phi Theta Kappa, the international honor society for the two-year college.

Her work with children involves more than just classroom time, as all good teachers know. Bentsiy makes home visits to discuss her students’ progress with parents, and she travels throughout the district to translate and interpret for meetings and parent conferences.

Bentsiy says the cost of pursuing another degree is prohibitive for her right now, but she doesn’t rule it out. “I would love to eventually get a bachelor’s degree in Education,” she says, “so down the road, if the financing’s there, I’ll definitely do it.”

Affordability was in fact the primary reason she enrolled at a technical college. “I knew I would be going to a technical college, but the question was which one,” she says. “I started out wanting to go into nursing ... and earlier I wanted to be a nurse or a doctor in addition to a teacher.”

But Piedmont Tech’s Early Care and Education program eventually won her over, and she has no regrets about her decision. “I had always heard good things about Piedmont, but I was really surprised at how personal the education is, especially the people,” she says.
“The teachers are willing to work with you, and they don’t treat you as a number. At PTC, you are a person... a very valuable person.”

Slated to graduate in May 2009, Bentsiy plans to continue teaching at Cherokee Trail. “I just love going to school, whether I’m learning or teaching, but right now my passion is children,” she says. “I’m going to miss Piedmont, but I’m also really looking forward to being able to devote more time to my students.I am convinced more than ever that my calling is to teach children.”