My Other Gig

Once upon a time, I was a teacher.  Well I guess I still am, technically.  I'm all certified and everything, but I have chosen to stay home with kids.  I hope to return to classroom teaching in another 4 years or so as I wait for my boys to hit first grade.  But in order to "stay sharp", I tutor privately.  I'm an English teacher and I often tutor children who are behind in reading.  I was trained as a secondary ed teacher, meaning grades 6-12, but for the last 4-5 years, I've had a steady flow of elementary kids.  It's been a challenge in that I was trained to handle a slightly different crew, but it's also been quite eye-opening to the struggles elementary ed teachers face and it's made me a far better teacher.

Well, I have this one student who I've been with since the middle of first grade.  She is now about to finish 3rd grade.  When I met her, she was struggling quite a bit.  She read at about 15 words per minute and was hating school.  She now reads well over 150 words per minute and is one of the top students in her class.  I'd love to take the credit for that, but it was her.  While Sydney has had a team of people, her mom, me, and her teacher, to be a support crew, it was all Sydney.  She is the one who allowed me to show her how her brain works.  She is the one who refused to give up.  She is the one that kept a smile on her face even though she probably felt like crying.  She is the one who got it and smashed through every state test they threw at her.  If you want to see what perseverance looks like, browse through my photos below.  If you want to see how happy success can make a kid, scroll down.  Sydney has overcome HUGE obstacles.  Her birth mother used drugs while pregnant with Sydney.  She was abused and neglected for the first fifteen months of her life.  Doctors have diagnosed her with issues that should have kept her from succeeding at all.  But with the tenacity of her adoptive parents, especially Sydney's adoptive mother, this girl has bull dozed through all expectations.  Sydney is proof that the human mind and heart, with enough love and support, can conquer anything.

Students like Sydney have shown me more about what makes a good teacher than any of my teacher education did.  Getting to see, one-on-one the struggle some kids go through just to master things that other kids barely even have to think about, is heart wrenching, but it highlights the need for our schools to be manned to the rafters with volunteers, aides, and committed teachers.  Our teachers are overworked, struggling to attend to 25 or more individual learners.  So if you have time, whether you have kids in school or not, go volunteer in a classroom. They welcome the help.  They may just have you read with a student.  They may have you attend to the high kids so the teacher can attend to the low kids.  They may have you do all sorts of things.  The point is, go and do.  Sydney's mom was able to afford a tutor who could give her focused attention.  Not every parent can do that.  Even if you just have an hour a week, I encourage anyone to call their local elementary schools and offer themselves up as a volunteer.  I promise you, it'll change you for the better.

So, I'll step off my soap box now and let you see the photos of my bright, beautiful Sydney.  ;-)

Today, in order to sneak in a little impromptu expository writing, I had Sydney work on writing a letter to another, much younger, student of mine about how to be a good student.  Learning good student skills is a big part of my job.  I think a student needs to know how to learn and how their individual brain works not just what to learn.  She wrote a very good letter.  She's getting much faster at composing her thoughts and getting them down on paper.