Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Who's the teacher here?

I had my first official night of tutoring and I was just really excited to find the place on public transportation! I took the Pink Line train out to the station and then walked the three blocks to the school. I was the only white girl in the whole neighbourhood, but most people were just curious to see me and I wasn't nervous or afraid at all. To be fair, I was a little too distracted for that. I needed to make sure that I had my bearings. After all, I'll eventually be doing this in the dead of winter, so I need to know exactly where I'm going.

I got to the school around 5.45pm and was put to work straight away in the library/tutoring room, and was asked to help one of the girls with her reading. She's only 11 years old, so I didn't think it was too advisable that she read to me a chapter about finding love and marriage in the early 1700s America. A little too heavy for all of us I think. So we switched to read Disney's "Dumbo". Much more appropriate. Still, my student is not the best reader, so I don't think we fully captured the simple beauty of the pachiderm parable. I still enjoyed it though.

While we were finishing up, a little champ named Kev came up and asked if he could read to me next. So we started out with a book about Spoonbill parents trying to find food to feed their hungry chicks. The perils that the mother bird faced as she fished in the swamp; so close to being devoured by a family of alligators. It was intense! But at least Kev was getting into it too and making a lot of sense of the story, which was good. Then we switched and read some wildlife books where we oohed and ahhed over photos of bobcats tearing the heads of rabbits - that sort of thing. But Kev's mother was in the room the whole time, so he was allowed to look at that sort of material.

Then we just chatted for a bit about our mutual love of animals and the various pets we've had in our lives. He was really good company, and we've agreed to bring each other a book next week that has some fun animals in it. I have 7 days to find such a thing. Help.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It it helps I can send a gazillion photos of the pooch over to you??

Anonymous said...

That's lovely Gab. You always could befriend kids quickly - I was thinking of ways I could "take them out" and hide them so no-one would ever know! **KIDDING!!!!**

I think what you're doing is excellent. Keep it up! :)