The first week of tutoring worked out better then I would have expected. Not to place judgment on my tutoring team, but I didn't expect them to be so diligent in showing up. Furthermore, I had no idea just how much the middle school appreciates the efforts we've been making. Katie Weisberg said that the academic coaches are "singing praises about the wonderful job we've been doing".
There are already a few kids who just make me smile. First and foremost is Manny, a 6th grade boy who is always asking questions. Manny loves to get his work done, but finds that he just doesn't know how to do it. The good news is that he's very open to learning, and I've taught him how to work with all those "stupid fractions", as he calls them.
Another boy whose fun to be around is Mikey. Mikey was apathetic about me being his tutor at first, but after a short while he really warmed up to me. You can imagine how good he (and myself) felt leaving tutoring after we checked off 4 of his 10 missing assignments.
There are a few things that I've noticed that bother me thought. First is what seems to be the utter lack of enthusiasm that the academic coaches have. Now, of course, this could be from having to tutor kids day in and day out, but it doesn't help the kids at all. The more enthusiastic I get about learning, the better chance the kids have of doing really good work. If they see me getting pumped and excited, they get pumped and excited too. This is an observation I've made, and might be a temporary thing.
Finally, the event which really infuriated me. I was walking to tutoring (a little bit late due to football) and I saw one of kids wandering around, desperately looking for something. I asked him what was wrong and he told me that the tutors weren't in their room, and he couldn't find them. So I told him I'd help him find them, and off we went. Sure enough, we found the tutoring room. The lights were off, and the tutors were off in the corner, creating the illusion of an empty room. The kid was short, and couldn't see the people inside, so he probably walked right by without noticing anyone was in there. He looked at me with a big smile on his face and said "Thanks Evan! I really need help on my math homework". I told him that there was nothing to worry about, and that we had 45 minutes to work on it. We walked in to the classroom, and the academic coaches said hello. But then they changed their attitude, looked at the kid I had walked inside with, and said "Oh, sorry, you're past the cutoff time. You can't be in here."
I was stunned. The boy looked at me, and his eyes said "help". I asked why there was a cutoff time. They said that those were the rules, that he knew them, and that he couldn't be in there. The kid picked up his stuff without a word, and left.
I was seething with anger. How could anyone turn a kid away if they need help? The lights in the room weren't on, it looked like no one was even there. By God was I mad. I haven't brought it up with anyone, yet. But you can guarantee that I'm going to do something about it, because that is the most ridiculous rule I have ever heard.
Regardless, it was a very enriching week, and I'm looking forward to continuing for as long as I can.
