tutor
note: this blog entry was written on may 10th, 2005, only now being published. *sorry*
*****
today i joined a volunteering program to tutor math at a youth center.
i was supposed to tutor a particular student, but he wasn't in, and so i was told by the director to assist whomever needed help with their homework. ok, i said.
the student who came to me was a lively young man, age 9, named Basit Owumolu-somethingsomethingsomething (i stopped trying to remember after the ninth syllable). he's clearly child of immigrants, coz his english wasn't that good. he could converse okay, and he seemed to understand whatever i was trying to explain, but his reading level was poor and his vocabulary was weak, - very weak, as a matter of fact, for a 3rd grader.
our first homework was english vocabulary, and he didn't know what the words 'pitch,' 'ditch,' and 'switch' meant, much less to form sentences using those words, which was the homework. i had to use exaggerated explanations and big hand movements to make sure he understood what the words meant. he listened keenly but impatiently, pencil in hand, waiting for me to give him the answers already so that he could get the homework over with.
goodness me, the education system in this country is really just sad.
our second homework was math, and i myself had to scratch my head; - not at the math problems, but at the level of the assigned math problems. the concept was estimation, ok?, and the questions were, for instance:
a) what is 971 x 4.1?
b) how much does 12 units of apple cost if the apple costs $0.49 per unit?
answer:
(remember, the concept is estimation)
a) 4000
b) $5.00
how do you explain to a child, whose english is paltry at best, what 'estimation' means? and to explain why the estimation for 971 is 1000 and not 970? or that for 4.1 it is 4 and not 5? or that the estimation of 12 isn't still 12?
so now i was pinching my eyes, and he's crinkling his nose.
thank god the kid's quick to pick up. but still, i had to really really explain. and what bugged me was that these stuff was homework stuff, which means that his teacher must had already devoted some good time in class conveying the estimation concept. and yet, during homework time, the kid got stuck; not because he doesn't know what 1000 times 4 is, but *why* it is 1000 times 4.
math-wise, basit is smart. his multiplication table is still limited (till table 6, he proudly exclaimed). at least he understood the bigger 'math picture.' he got stumped when i asked what 9 times 4 was. he shrugged helplessly and said that he didn't know the 9 multiplication yet. so i said, okay, then tell me what 4 times 9 is. he looked at the numbers again, paused, and then his eyes lit up, he's grinning, you could almost hear his brain just went "ding!ding!ding!" and you knew he got it.
he still has a long way to go, though, for a third grader. he couldn't do 32 x 24, till i explained how. and he couldn't honestly understand why $4.00 x 10 isn't really $40, but $40.00 instead. the many zeroes truly boggled him.
i then found out later about how truly poor his reading and comprehension skills were when we got to our final homework. it was english comprehension, and the article was about tornadoes and windspeeds and fujita scale and the different types of damages tornadoes can inflict.
okay, first of all, freakin' flippin' FUJITA SCALE? seriously, what DO you say when your student asks you what a fujita is? jeewhizz, gol-ly!
when i asked him to read the article, he fumbled all way through. there were words he didn't know, words he couldn't even pronounce - gosh i dunno which words to give as examples, coz there were too many. he stumbled, i corrected, he repeated, moved on, then stumbled again, got corrected, repeated, and on, and on. it was torturous.
finally when he finished, i asked him whether he understood what the article was about, and he said no...
*sighhh*
and so i had to explain to him. *BIG hand movements* tornadoes!, whooooshhh, windspeed STRONG!, some not so strong, can tear up roofs, uproot trees, knock over trains, flip cars, BAM BAM!, destroy big buildings, whooosshhh whoosshhh! his eyes widened, his ears perked. two other kids came over to hear my fascinating tornado story. it was like i was rehashing the movie "Twister" to them.
and he understood! he finally did! by the end of my tornado wayangkulit story, he understood what the fujita scale was, which windspeed was within the F2, and what kinda destruction an F5 could do. and when we got to the questions he answered them easily and correctly, which i swear he never could've done by merely reading the article.
anyway, after that, we were done. we hi-fived each other, and he ran outside the class to play.
i was then asked by three eight graders for help with their science homework, just the final question in their list, so i did a quick read and then explained to them what the question really meant. aaah, they nodded.
and then that's it, i was done for the day.
i chatted for a while with those three eighth graders, and found out that they're from nepal, thailand, and mexico. apparently this youth center catered primarily to the immigrant students.
this tutoring thing, i'd say, requires a lot of whatever - patience, skills, focus, whatever. i don't know what i'm getting into. i have free time, and i wanted to contribute. i really don't know what i'm getting into, though.
but truly i was glad i did...
today i joined a volunteering program to tutor math at a youth center.
i was supposed to tutor a particular student, but he wasn't in, and so i was told by the director to assist whomever needed help with their homework. ok, i said.
the student who came to me was a lively young man, age 9, named Basit Owumolu-somethingsomethingsomething (i stopped trying to remember after the ninth syllable). he's clearly child of immigrants, coz his english wasn't that good. he could converse okay, and he seemed to understand whatever i was trying to explain, but his reading level was poor and his vocabulary was weak, - very weak, as a matter of fact, for a 3rd grader.
our first homework was english vocabulary, and he didn't know what the words 'pitch,' 'ditch,' and 'switch' meant, much less to form sentences using those words, which was the homework. i had to use exaggerated explanations and big hand movements to make sure he understood what the words meant. he listened keenly but impatiently, pencil in hand, waiting for me to give him the answers already so that he could get the homework over with.
goodness me, the education system in this country is really just sad.
our second homework was math, and i myself had to scratch my head; - not at the math problems, but at the level of the assigned math problems. the concept was estimation, ok?, and the questions were, for instance:
a) what is 971 x 4.1?
b) how much does 12 units of apple cost if the apple costs $0.49 per unit?
answer:
(remember, the concept is estimation)
a) 4000
b) $5.00
how do you explain to a child, whose english is paltry at best, what 'estimation' means? and to explain why the estimation for 971 is 1000 and not 970? or that for 4.1 it is 4 and not 5? or that the estimation of 12 isn't still 12?
so now i was pinching my eyes, and he's crinkling his nose.
thank god the kid's quick to pick up. but still, i had to really really explain. and what bugged me was that these stuff was homework stuff, which means that his teacher must had already devoted some good time in class conveying the estimation concept. and yet, during homework time, the kid got stuck; not because he doesn't know what 1000 times 4 is, but *why* it is 1000 times 4.
math-wise, basit is smart. his multiplication table is still limited (till table 6, he proudly exclaimed). at least he understood the bigger 'math picture.' he got stumped when i asked what 9 times 4 was. he shrugged helplessly and said that he didn't know the 9 multiplication yet. so i said, okay, then tell me what 4 times 9 is. he looked at the numbers again, paused, and then his eyes lit up, he's grinning, you could almost hear his brain just went "ding!ding!ding!" and you knew he got it.
he still has a long way to go, though, for a third grader. he couldn't do 32 x 24, till i explained how. and he couldn't honestly understand why $4.00 x 10 isn't really $40, but $40.00 instead. the many zeroes truly boggled him.
i then found out later about how truly poor his reading and comprehension skills were when we got to our final homework. it was english comprehension, and the article was about tornadoes and windspeeds and fujita scale and the different types of damages tornadoes can inflict.
okay, first of all, freakin' flippin' FUJITA SCALE? seriously, what DO you say when your student asks you what a fujita is? jeewhizz, gol-ly!
when i asked him to read the article, he fumbled all way through. there were words he didn't know, words he couldn't even pronounce - gosh i dunno which words to give as examples, coz there were too many. he stumbled, i corrected, he repeated, moved on, then stumbled again, got corrected, repeated, and on, and on. it was torturous.
finally when he finished, i asked him whether he understood what the article was about, and he said no...
*sighhh*
and so i had to explain to him. *BIG hand movements* tornadoes!, whooooshhh, windspeed STRONG!, some not so strong, can tear up roofs, uproot trees, knock over trains, flip cars, BAM BAM!, destroy big buildings, whooosshhh whoosshhh! his eyes widened, his ears perked. two other kids came over to hear my fascinating tornado story. it was like i was rehashing the movie "Twister" to them.
and he understood! he finally did! by the end of my tornado wayangkulit story, he understood what the fujita scale was, which windspeed was within the F2, and what kinda destruction an F5 could do. and when we got to the questions he answered them easily and correctly, which i swear he never could've done by merely reading the article.
anyway, after that, we were done. we hi-fived each other, and he ran outside the class to play.
i was then asked by three eight graders for help with their science homework, just the final question in their list, so i did a quick read and then explained to them what the question really meant. aaah, they nodded.
and then that's it, i was done for the day.
i chatted for a while with those three eighth graders, and found out that they're from nepal, thailand, and mexico. apparently this youth center catered primarily to the immigrant students.
this tutoring thing, i'd say, requires a lot of whatever - patience, skills, focus, whatever. i don't know what i'm getting into. i have free time, and i wanted to contribute. i really don't know what i'm getting into, though.
but truly i was glad i did...
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