Adventures In Tutoring: Top 10 Style

10. The Interview Process.  I'm all for short interviews, but I found it a little odd that they only asked me one question and then gave me the job. I filled out the application after they gave me the job. And I also filled out all the other paperwork immediately following the interview. I was then told to go get a TB test and fingerprints done (not so odd, though.). 

9. Everything is last minute.  I didn't hear from them for two months after I had my interview and they said I would start in December (interview was in November). I hear from them in the middle of January and they give me less than 24 hours notice to attend 12 hours of training over the next three days. Not sure what was going on there. I couldn't attend those times because I was already planning to go to a wedding that same weekend. Once I completed training, a week or two went by and then I heard from my coordinator. I was then given a day and a half to contact all five of my students to set up schedules for the next week. It was increasingly difficult because some of the phone numbers didn't work, which required me to go to their homes and try to contact them. This took me the entire weekend to figure out. I generally don't do well with last minute, unplanned things. I need at least 24 hours notice, well, unless it's something fun. Ask Sam. I'm a little nutty about this.

8. Unorganization/Clerical Errors. Everything just seems everywhere. Like I said above, a lot of the addresses and phone numbers aren't correct. People have already been in these homes before I get there because they do assessments to see what level the students are at. The contact information should be correct! Tonight, I met with my coordinator (she's the person I contact first about any questions). First of all, I wasn't able to contact one of my students last week because the phone number and address were wrong. I go over there tonight and I find out that my coordinator just wrote down the address wrong. Then I find out that one girl who I squeezed in to tutor this week, I shouldn't have been tutoring in the first place. She was assigned to two tutors and the other one hadn't started yet. Both things that my coordinator made a mistake on and she says, "Hm. Don't know how that happened." I am sure that it's very hard to organize and run this company, but when they've been doing it for almost 10 years, I feel like they should have a handle on how to keep things organized.

7. Switcheroos. I started off with five students. I now only have two of the original with three newbies.  I need to call, all but one family, tomorrow to set up schedules for this week. Granted, this seems to have worked out a little in my favor. I tutored these siblings. I was having a lot of issues with the younger one because she hardly spoke any English. I would explain things over and over and over again and she just wasn't getting it. I would point to a picture in the book and say, "this is a worm, this is a pole, this is a hook." I would then immediately following ask her where each of them was and she said she didn't know. I didn't know if she wasn't understand me, had some sort of learning disability or just didn't care. I think a large part of learning is consistency with kids. I don't like that I'm going into and coming out of their academic lives. Even though every tutor has the same material, I'm sure that every tutor still teaches differently and I think switching the tutors will end up hurting the kid intellectually in the end.

6. I don't speak Spanish. This doesn't seem to be a big deal with the kids (except for the one above), it's just a big deal because I have yet to speak with a parent who was fairly fluent in English. It's hard to connect with the parents if we don't speak the same language.

5. No time off. Like I said before, I think consistency is very important so I do understand this. Doesn't mean I have to like it though.

4. Late Nights/No Dinner. Last week, some nights I was tutoring until 9pm. None of my students got out of school until 5:30. Luckily, since I am switching my siblings with another set of siblings who are available around 3 or so, I hopefully won't be working as late. Since I haven't spoken with all my students yet, I can't know for sure. The late nights thing wouldn't be a big deal if it was only a couple nights a week, but it seems to be every night, which is just a lot. This means that I don't get to have dinner with Sam, which is something that I look forward to, but I don't even get to eat dinner at all because I'm tutoring kids right through dinnertime.

3. The Material. I tutor one on one and it really bothers me that the material I am given is for a classroom setting. They really need to update it because I really feel like this is hindering the student. I tutor each student for three hours a week, each session an hour long. On Day 3, the leaders manual asks us to do a group reading, a partner reading, then an individual reading of the book we are going through for that week. How am I supposed to do this when I only have one kid? Impossible. Also, we go through the same book for the entire week. For the older kids, it's fine because they have different stories in that one book. For the younger kids though, it's difficult because the book isn't very long and I know they get tired of reading it like 5 times a day. Their statistics show that it works, but I've learned not to fully trust and rely on statistics.

2. Not seeing Sam during the week. I hated it when Sam and I were dating and he had to work the night shift. I never got to see him then. It's an even bigger deal now because I leave for work right as he gets home and don't get home until late. I rarely get to see him. We just got married and I'm not ready to give up that much time with him.

1. Gut Feelings from me, Sam and my mom/Emotional Breakdowns. Ever since the beginning, I wasn't sure about this job but due to desperately needing some income, and with nothing else on the horizon, I took it. Also, from the beginning, Sam has felt uneasy about this company. And after a while my mom was even saying to be careful. This was mostly because it's easy to get sick from being in other peoples homes, especially those with kids. I already have terrible (THE WORST) sinuses, now I have another way that I can get sickly. About a week ago, I had an emotional breakdown about it all. This is not something I do often, well, ever actually. I don't cry, I don't freak out. It was completely out of character for me. I was even genuinely scaring Sam. It's so hard to be home alone all day and then when Sam finally gets home, I have to leave. It's so hard to be by myself. Everyone I know works during the day, so I'm at home until I have to leave. And with tutoring, I'm giving up my nights, the chance I get to go out and do something with friends. It's just a horrible, horrible feeling that overtook me last week. 

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So What Do I Do? 

Pray about it. See where I'm supposed to be. I tutor each student for seven weeks. After that, I don't have to pick up another set of students. At this point, I don't think I will. Right after the seven weeks are up, there's a job fair at the Fresno Fairgrounds. I'm hoping that at least someone will be interested in hiring me there. Right now, I just feel God telling me to stick it out for these next seven weeks and then he has something else in mind for me. Hopefully something full time and during the day!

I don't want to be the type of person who gives up when things get hard, and I don't want people thinking that's what I do because it's not. I'm not even sure I would classify this as hard though, it's annoying, frustrating and emotionally draining. I can only take so much and I'm running thin.

I think the worst (and best) part is that I actually enjoy tutoring and getting to know these kids. The best feeling is seeing a kid who actually learned and understood something. A light comes to their face that can't be explained. And the fact that I helped is the best feeling. I think education is one of the most important things, and it's truly great to be able to help out.

So for now, I stick with this job for the next seven weeks. On Tuesday mornings, I'm going to babysit at church for the mommys in the Bible Study. It pays too! And it looks like I might start helping out with the Good News Club on Wednesdays. It's an on-campus Christian Club. These are both exciting opportunities.

Please just keep me in your prayers right now. Thank you for reading... if you got this far!