Second Tutoring Session

Tutoring Session Two:

I spent a few hours entering my student's assessment test into the test database.  The scores were not a surprise to me but they certainly would be to his parents.  I know everyone wants to think their child is on the road to being a genius but really if your child is not reading the phone book at age three, it is a little difficult to convince mainstream education that your child is a misunderstood genius.  I thought about my approach to my student's parents and how my game plan would need to be clear and concise on how the assessment scores were directly linked with their son's performance in school.  I spent a few hours preparing a long term goal setting sheet with goals directly linked to performance targets.

Well, his folks took the assessment scores okay considering they truly thought the only reason their son was behind in school was because his biological father had unexpectedly passed away a few months earlier.  The reality was their son had excellent math scores but he didn't follow through with his work and was sloppy.  He had 99% of the answers but the answer was still wrong.  My student's language arts and vocabulary skills were nearly a grade level behind.  This was surprising as the student had an "A to B" average in English and Language Arts.  

The assessment score tutoring session is a lot for parents to take in and longer for them to wrap their arms around the information.  It is best to let parents review the material and then give me a call in a few days to discuss scores.     

 

Tutoring My First Student

This was it.  The day was finally here where I would put a parent’s hopes and dreams in my capable hands.  Their child needed help and it was now up to me to see an action plan followed through.  Would the student be accepting of the hard work ahead of them or were they being forced to tutor?  I would find out soon enough-if there was a facade of layers built up over time.  I checked over my paperwork before I left the office, goal sheet, intake assessment, parental on site signatory form-all here.  

Arrived.  I knocked on the door and three faces immediately gave entrance to hope.  Which one was my student?  Wow a 64” big screen television was eight feet from the door.  I noticed a couch, on the West wall, a love seat on the East wall, and in the far corner next to the television was a wood fireplace covered with Barbie dolls along with boxes of some sort of action figures in sealed plastic boxes.  The path of light was no where to be found neither on the ceiling or as an upright.  How did anyone read in this room?  I noticed after introductions of the Three that a young man I would be tutoring held back down the unlit hallway and reluctantly walked toward me, shy, unsure, and stumbling over his foot.  I held out my offer of reassurance, peace, and authority and he accepted and grasped my hand.  Marc advised he was in the 7TH grade at Firhills Junior High.  Marc’s mom (Brianne), sister (Mary), and Step dad (Larry)-the Three advised tutoring would take place at the kitchen table.  I only needed to walk six steps from the ingress and I was in the kitchen.  Marc and I sat at the kitchen table and I introduced myself and took the mindset from his body language that he was being forced to tutor.  I had a wall to crumble before he would “buy-in” to the tutoring gig before him.  I explained that the process of tutoring was not painful but I would need to administer an assessment to be able to evaluate where his math and English skills.  Marc advised he was in advanced math and had just fallen behind.  I let him know that every student has to take the assessment.  Marc was given one hour to complete the assessment and during that time I meet with both parents.  Brianne advised me that Marc’s dad had suddenly died in October and the shock and grief was interfering in his ability to concentrate in school.  Marc was a solid “B” student peppered with a “C,” but at this juncture he had a “D” in math.  Brianne indicated that Marc had spoke with his school counselor after she notified the school of the death.  There had been no follow-up counseling since then with the family outside of the school system.  

Marc came into the living room and handed me the assessment that took him an hour to complete.  I went over the rules again stating that an adult had to be at every tutoring session and must sign the parental on site form at the completion of each session.  Each tutoring meeting would be no less than an hour and half.  Anything less than that is not worth either parties time.  “I will be back for the next tutoring session and go over your assessment.”

        

Geometry Anyone?

(All students have been given different names to protect their identity)

Geometry.  My first phone call from my tutoring supervisor had beckoned me to tutor a sophomore at a local high school.  I was given the background of student and read his profile online.  Juan Milan’s family had moved to Idaho from California to circumvent potential problems they had seen with his peers in school.  Their story was already gripping to me as Juanita and Thomas had left California with no job prospects in the local area but just an extreme will to succeed for their son’s future.  I accepted the tutor job and began a year of tutoring that turned more-or-less into mentoring. 

Tutoring Pays $$

Frankly speaking, I started tutoring to not only “test” myself to see if I had a future in teaching, but to see if I had the passion to teach others.  I had thrived in college earning my undergraduate and graduate degrees, but I knew going too college was different from teaching students.

My tutoring starting point was filing out the paperwork with the Idaho State Police Department for a background check and finger printing at the police station.  Nothing brings seriousness to embarking upon a new job than being finger printed by an officer!  After a few weeks my background was approved and I had the credentials in hand to tutor my first student. 

Tutoring

Greetings, parents, friends, the curious, and everyone else to my blog of tutoring.  I spent the past school year tutoring several students ranging in grades from seventh through senior year.  I’m not sure I really count my niece that is in the third grade, but why not?  When I started tutoring I wasn’t sure what to expect and I didn’t know if I would enjoy academia as I had craved the richness of higher education.  This was my test trial (if you will) to see if I was up to the challenge of teaching.  Little did I realize, the challenge was far more edifying than I had ever imagined (how cliche is that statement).  This blog is a peek into my experience as an educator and mentor to the students that I helped perform substantially better in school.