So today was my second visit to Classic City High School. From now on, I'm going to be going every Wednesday at 10:15 instead of Mondays. Today was a lot different than last week- in both good and bad ways.
When I first got to the Language Arts classroom, the teacher told me the students would be taking some notes at the beginning of class. I sat in the back as they took notes about illiteracy in America for about twenty minutes. Most of them seemed disinterested in the content of the PowerPoint- they stared at their phones and whispered to each other instead of writing things down. I noticed that the boy I mentored last week- Michael- kept complaining about everything he had to write. The teacher was telling them exactly what they needed to write down and making everything easy for the students, and he still didn't want to participate! This was frustrating for me to watch.
After the note taking, the teacher informed me that the students would be reading novels on their own for the rest of the class period. After a quick conversation with the student sitting next to me about the book he had chosen to read, I decided to wander over to the math class across the hall to see if I could help another student out.
The math class was a completely different environment. There were only five students in the class- four of them sat at individual tables and one sat on the computer. The math teacher, Ms. Cho, stood at the SmartBoard, explaining to the students how to find the mean, median, and mode of a set of data. I sat down at a table with a girl I'll call Cara. Cara didn't seem to pay attention to Ms. Cho at all. She rolled her eyes and refused to answer any questions. I really didn't think she understood the material so I tried to help her out, but she started to draw on the back of her paper instead. I watched her for a few minutes and realized that she had real drawing talent. So I struck up a conversation about her art to get her to trust me a little more. Surprisingly, it worked! I asked Cara if we could work on one of the problems together and she began to do the math like a pro. She knew the material all along!
The most important thing I learned from today was never to judge a student's abilities in the classroom. Even though it seemed like Cara wasn't paying attention and didn't know how to complete her work, she actually knew the material backwards and forwards. It made me think that she might not be challenged enough in the classroom, that could be one reason that she's so bored. I hope I get a chance to work with Cara again next week- I would like to get to know her more.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
My First Day: January 14th
I showed up to Classic City High School today for the first time, ready to tutor at 10:15 AM. Mrs. Mimi told me I would be placed in a second period English classroom, and she gave me a quick tour of the school before taking me to the classroom. The room was pitch black, and about fifteen students were sitting at computers, working on online English quizzes. The teacher in the classroom sat quietly at her desk, working on her own computer.
My student's a boy that I'll call Michael. Michael told me he was thirteen, but either I heard wrong or he was lying to me- I think Classic City only has students that are 16-22 years old. The first thing I noticed about Michael was that he was blasting rap music through his headphones, singing along to the lyrics. When Mrs. Mimi introduced me to him, he wouldn't even look up at me. He kept telling Mrs. Mimi that he didn't need a tutor and he didn't want one. I was a little intimidated at first- Michael clearly didn't want me there.
I sat down next to Michael and asked him what he was working on. He told me he was taking reading quizzes and he had to make a 70% on each one to move onto the next. It was difficult to talk to Michael because he could barely hear me because of the music- but for the most part he answered all the questions I asked him. I was discouraged because he told me he hated school and he had no plans of going to college. He just guessed the answers to questions instead of reading the passages, and it became clear that he did not care about his score. I tried to intervene, going over the passages with Michael and working with him on the questions. For a little bit he was working with me, but after a while he complained that his head hurt and he couldn't read anymore.
For a few minutes, I leaned back in my chair and thought about the situation. I wanted so badly for Michael to open up to me and trust me, but how could I expect that much from him? He didn't know me at all. To him, I was some random college student coming in to help him with his work. He felt singled out because I was the only tutor in the classroom. I was discouraged because I hadn't made a good connection with Michael.
There was a silver lining- at the end of the hour, I told Michael I needed to leave to go to class. He asked me why I was leaving him multiple times. When I told him I would be back next week, he seemed okay with it. I know tutoring Michael is not going to be easy, but I know if I can make a connection with him and keep a positive attitude, our relationship will improve.
My student's a boy that I'll call Michael. Michael told me he was thirteen, but either I heard wrong or he was lying to me- I think Classic City only has students that are 16-22 years old. The first thing I noticed about Michael was that he was blasting rap music through his headphones, singing along to the lyrics. When Mrs. Mimi introduced me to him, he wouldn't even look up at me. He kept telling Mrs. Mimi that he didn't need a tutor and he didn't want one. I was a little intimidated at first- Michael clearly didn't want me there.
I sat down next to Michael and asked him what he was working on. He told me he was taking reading quizzes and he had to make a 70% on each one to move onto the next. It was difficult to talk to Michael because he could barely hear me because of the music- but for the most part he answered all the questions I asked him. I was discouraged because he told me he hated school and he had no plans of going to college. He just guessed the answers to questions instead of reading the passages, and it became clear that he did not care about his score. I tried to intervene, going over the passages with Michael and working with him on the questions. For a little bit he was working with me, but after a while he complained that his head hurt and he couldn't read anymore.
For a few minutes, I leaned back in my chair and thought about the situation. I wanted so badly for Michael to open up to me and trust me, but how could I expect that much from him? He didn't know me at all. To him, I was some random college student coming in to help him with his work. He felt singled out because I was the only tutor in the classroom. I was discouraged because I hadn't made a good connection with Michael.
There was a silver lining- at the end of the hour, I told Michael I needed to leave to go to class. He asked me why I was leaving him multiple times. When I told him I would be back next week, he seemed okay with it. I know tutoring Michael is not going to be easy, but I know if I can make a connection with him and keep a positive attitude, our relationship will improve.
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