Professionals for Active Learning (PAL)

Interview with Tommy T. F. Liu, Managing Director of Outreach

Tommy has been involved with the non-profit organization, Professionals for Active Learning (PAL) for a few years now, reaching out to peers, friends, colleagues and other organizations in the community. PAL professionals engage the students in hands-on workshops involving real world examples, focusing mainly in the sciences.

Q. What is the purpose of your non-profit organization?

A. Our mission is to establish a network of educators, professionals, and students. Our main goal is to encourage students to understand there is a purpose for education by giving 'real world' examples that they can apply.

Volunteers are professionals exhibiting certain expertise in career, hobbies, or general interests. We bring professionals to the classroom, implementing a win-win-win strategy.

• The students win because they have an actual role model for potential career paths using education.


• Teachers win because they have additional resource that they would not normally have access to by having unique expertise entering the classroom.


• Professionals win because they share knowledge with youths of tomorrow and improving community in both present and future.

In regards to the general structure of how we establish networks, we work with host organizations to run hands-on active learning workshops in which all parties can participate, which is why we’re called Professionals for Active Learning (PAL).
We are a grassroots organization in that groups of volunteers just want to make a difference in the community.

Q. How did you come up with the idea?

A. The founders of PAL felt a connection to the community, with our focus on the Lower East Side, New York. Some of us grew up there, went to school there, and/or work there.

Personally, I started to recognize a need in this community for the youth to develop more of an interest in pursuing education further. At the time PAL was founded, I worked at a non-profit organization that dealt with assisting workers that were economically affected by the events of 9/11. Speaking with many of these workers in the Lower East Side many were curious if any services were available for their children.

In the spring of 2004, a few colleagues and I discussed possibilities for impacting the community by addressing these needs. We knew that friends, colleagues, and peers wanted to give back to the community as well, and so we provided the opportunity to connect with educators and students by having these active- learning workshops.

Q. What is an active learning workshop?

A. Active-learning workshops involve an overview of a certain topic to students - generally in the sciences - and a team - building, hands-on activity component. For example, if students were interested in the topic of healthy eating, then we would ideally be able to bring a professional or expert in related fields, such as nutritionist, or doctor. In this example, the workshop facilitators (or, as we call them "Catalysts") would talk about concepts such as food groups, important nutrients and a balanced diet. Then teams of students would work together on a group activity, perhaps constructing their own food pyramids.

However, the format of our workshops are fluid, so that we can adapt the structure to accommodate any parties involved.

Q. Why the sciences?

A. There are a few main reasons for concentrating on the sciences:
We saw that the sciences were of topic in which NYC students had a lot of room for improvement.

As an overall trend in America, we see that this nation is producing fewer professionals in the fields of the sciences.

And also, we recognized that the language of science is universal, so with a large immigrant population on the LES, students that may be intimidated by the English language barrier can build confidence in gaining expertise in science.

Q. How did you get information on the fact that there are fewer professionals in fields of science and mathematics?

A. Generally from what we hear in the news media (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/opinion/25thu4.html?scp=5&sq=education+engineers+in+America&st=nyt), recalling officials in the education arena pointing to this need in building stronger foundations in scientific learning, and from personal observation and noticing that science is not really a favorite subject anymore.


Q. Do you see a specific need for the Chinese community?

A. Actually, we are not limiting ourselves to a specific ethnicity. Our students-teachers-professionals come from diverse background. This reflects the diversity of the LES. And is one reason why LES is such a special place and why it is very rewarding for those involved is that they are able to enrich such a diverse community.

Q. What is your favorite moment pertaining to your involvement in PAL? What moments stood out for you?

A. Most satisfying reward comes from the students themselves when they are eager to find out more about topics discussed. It really shows how a few moments of connection between professionals and students can make such a difference in their pursuit of knowledge.

Q. What were the biggest obstacles you encountered when trying to implement this?

A. The biggest obstacles involved were gaining the trust of the community itself. Some people in the community found it strange that working professionals wanted to volunteer their free time to run these types of workshops without the desire for material compensation; after all, we were just a group of friends that wanted to make a difference.

However after being given the chance to show the educators and students that we had their best interest in mind by running effective workshops where we were able to establish strong relationships that enabled us to eventually work directly with the NY Public Library and the NY Public School system. We were also able to obtain grants to funds our projects.

We were able to obtain grants from New York Universtiy via their Office of Community Service as well as a grant from the Milken Family Foundation's Festivals for Youth Program. (http://www.mff.org/ffy/ffysites.taf?page=festivalsite&siteID=33885736)

Q. How did you decide on which schools to execute your workshops in?

A. This goes back to overcoming those obstacles I was talking about. A lot of it had to do with establishing relationships so that more and more organizations and educational institutions would be comfortable with us. Once we showed that we were providing an effective educational experience with roots in the community, we were able to collaborate with public schools in the area to act as hosts for our PAL’s workshops.

Q. What advice would you give to people interested in starting a non-profit organization?

A. First, think about the need that you want to address. Try to find out if it’s even a need at all, and if so, if someone else is addressing it. If someone else is addressing the need you may wish to join those groups or establish relationships with the organizations that are already improving the community. Or, you may find that you can spend your time and energy dealing with other more pertinent needs in the community.

Once you have that figured out, then ask yourself if starting a non-profit is really what you want to do. With this, I mean that a lot of time, effort, energy and resources will be devoted to the administration of the non-profit organization itself. So be prepared to take this on.

Q. Do you see your workshops expanding to different grade levels?

A. In truth, we are flexible enough to have workshops, involving different grade levels already. We are very glad to be able to improve the education of students of all different levels.

Q. What upcoming events/workshops are you holding?

A. In the immediate future, we have workshops that are being hosted at PS 124 and PS 42 in the months of April and May. We are still looking for interested volunteers to assist with these workshops.

Please contact us if you wish to become a workshop Catalyst (a Catalyst is our term for a workshop facilitator, but we see these facilitators as having the special role: to “catalyze” and germinate ideas in the youth of tomorrow). (Click here for more information about PAL)