Tutor

On Monday I received a call about a part-time position as a tutor which would start on Tuesday and run through mid-March. Since I am still waiting to hear from the Rotary and don't have anything else in the works I accepted the job. I did receive an email from Rotary last week letting me know that they have yet to make a decision--so I am still in the running.

On Tuesday I drove to Niles, IL to meet with the supervisor I would be in contact with and to learn exactly what the tutor position would be doing. I haven't tutored before so I wasn't sure what it entailed. The job is for Tuesday and Thursday from 3:00-4:30 at an elementary school in North Chicago. I have a group of three boys, one in fifth grade, one in fourth grade and one in third grade. On Tuesday the supervisor came with me to show me how it works and told me I could jump in at any time. I let her run the majority of the show so I could see the full routine. There is a binder with all of the lessons and all of the materials included. The lessons are over English/Language Arts and Math. On Tuesday the lesson was mainly over pronouns, nouns and verbs. I wanted to establish myself as a tutor with the boys before the session was over and before it was all on me next time, so I handled the very last session of the lesson. The boys are very sweet, attentive and eager to learn.

On Thursday it was just me going over a lesson on punctuation and the structure of paragraphs. I had received a call from the supervisor earlier letting me know that the old tutor might come by to say goodbye, but it wasn't for sure. In the middle of the lesson he showed up with a pizza and coke. So we had a pizza party break and I chatted with Mr. Quigley. He is the Reading Specialist for the district and because his schedule was busy he had to stop tutoring. The first lesson went well. We didn't make it all the way through, but we will pick up where we left off next time.

I am very excited about this temporary position. Even though it is very part-time, I enjoy having something to do and not just anything. I am making a difference in the education of three young boys.