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Halfway there
Jan. 20th, 2012 03:20 pmWe've reached the midpoint of the school year here, which is a handy random point to pause and reflect on my experiences as a reading tutor.
Mostly it's been lovely. I've always wanted to work in an elementary school, and knew I wouldn't last as a classroom teacher - too much dealing with discipline problems, not enough time to work with individual students, and way too much multitasking. Tutoring is a perfect fit: working one on one with kids, teaching them to do my favorite thing in the world!
Naturally there are some days when I simply can't stand the sight of the alphabet anymore, and I still haven't gotten used to getting up at six, but in the main I'm glad I took the job.
And I'm glad I'm doing it here. The school I'm working at has a marvelous esprit de corps. One of the paraprofessionals got a new job in IT somewhere - and no one knew he was leaving till this week - but they threw together a potluck lunch for this Friday to see him off in style.
Someone brought elk chili. Minnesota, I love you.
Partly the esprit de corps is because it's small - most of the grades have just three teachers. The kids are tracked into different reading or math groups, and change teachers for those classes, so the teachers generally know all the students in their grade.
(When I was growing up my school didn't even begin tracking till fifth grade. But it makes so much sense! It must be so much easier to teach when you have a narrower spread of abilities in the classroom.)
But it's not just an internal esprit de corps. The school feels rooted in the community. Not only do people who live here tend to stay, but many of them have lots of family in the area too: most of my students comment offhand that they saw their cousins or grandparents or whoever this weekend.
"Do they live close by?" I ask.
"No," they reply serenely. "They live in [town fifteen minutes away]."
I grew up in a university town, which is in some ways similar: half the parents have tenure and therefore few people move away. But in a university town, almost no one's relatives live close. I was unusual in that I had grandparents who lived in the same state. (Five hours away, but still in the same state.)
Here there's a whole program for grandparents in the community to come in and help out.
And one of the kindergartner's parents don't speak Spanish, so her teacher contacted the high school Spanish program and has them translate her report cards, her weekly letters home, etc.
And there are high schoolers who come over here to tutor the elementary students or read to them.
I feel like a knot in a net. I may not be able to help all the students that we need to help (although I'm doing my darndest; we got through all the first graders on my waiting list!), but someone else will be there. We're all working together, and we will not let them fall.
Mostly it's been lovely. I've always wanted to work in an elementary school, and knew I wouldn't last as a classroom teacher - too much dealing with discipline problems, not enough time to work with individual students, and way too much multitasking. Tutoring is a perfect fit: working one on one with kids, teaching them to do my favorite thing in the world!
Naturally there are some days when I simply can't stand the sight of the alphabet anymore, and I still haven't gotten used to getting up at six, but in the main I'm glad I took the job.
And I'm glad I'm doing it here. The school I'm working at has a marvelous esprit de corps. One of the paraprofessionals got a new job in IT somewhere - and no one knew he was leaving till this week - but they threw together a potluck lunch for this Friday to see him off in style.
Someone brought elk chili. Minnesota, I love you.
Partly the esprit de corps is because it's small - most of the grades have just three teachers. The kids are tracked into different reading or math groups, and change teachers for those classes, so the teachers generally know all the students in their grade.
(When I was growing up my school didn't even begin tracking till fifth grade. But it makes so much sense! It must be so much easier to teach when you have a narrower spread of abilities in the classroom.)
But it's not just an internal esprit de corps. The school feels rooted in the community. Not only do people who live here tend to stay, but many of them have lots of family in the area too: most of my students comment offhand that they saw their cousins or grandparents or whoever this weekend.
"Do they live close by?" I ask.
"No," they reply serenely. "They live in [town fifteen minutes away]."
I grew up in a university town, which is in some ways similar: half the parents have tenure and therefore few people move away. But in a university town, almost no one's relatives live close. I was unusual in that I had grandparents who lived in the same state. (Five hours away, but still in the same state.)
Here there's a whole program for grandparents in the community to come in and help out.
And one of the kindergartner's parents don't speak Spanish, so her teacher contacted the high school Spanish program and has them translate her report cards, her weekly letters home, etc.
And there are high schoolers who come over here to tutor the elementary students or read to them.
I feel like a knot in a net. I may not be able to help all the students that we need to help (although I'm doing my darndest; we got through all the first graders on my waiting list!), but someone else will be there. We're all working together, and we will not let them fall.
