Officially a Tutor!

            School has finally begun, which means that I am finally fulfilling my role as a tutor of Mathematics and Spanish!  I work with the older students, individually, if they need additional help with math.  I also work with the younger kids on learning the Spanish alphabet, sounds and syllables.  I LOVE THE TUTORING PROGRAM and I am doing exactly what I expected and more.  I have been fortunate enough to teach the younger kids how to read, which is an inexplicable gift because reading is fundamental and will help them for the rest of their lives!  Right now the younger kids are working on the sounds and letters of the alphabet and I cannot wait until the end of this year to see their progress.  The tutoring program is wonderful because I can see daily progress in the children.  I feel that the kids, as well as myself, are growing and learning more each day.  For the kids, they are learning to read and as for myself I am learning to speak a second language fluently.  Additionally, the kids are very eager to work with me and it makes me smile when I walk into their classroom and they all jump for joy hoping that I will work with them that day.  I feel that the tutoring program is really good for the kids as well as myself because we get to have one-on-one time and I get to know a different side of the kids.

            Speaking of one-on-one time I think this is what the kids really seek, which is just a little individual attention.  What I have realized is that it can be extremely difficult when you do not get the one-on-one attention that you seek.  For example, when I was younger I received individual attention for the things that I did well.  When I performed well in school my parents would reward me for demonstrating a positive behavior.  When it was my birthday all the attention was on me and my parents focused on getting me the things I wanted that day.  The hard part for the kids here is that everyone is rewarded together and so they lack the individual attention that they seek.  For example, at the end of each month we celebrate all the kids that had a birthday in that month; we don’t celebrate the birthdays individually.  Or when the kids behave well many of them are rewarded at once instead of individually.  I am not trying to say that the kids do not receive any individual attention at all, because they definitely do, but I feel that this attention can be a reason that they misbehave sometimes because it is a way that they can stand out of the crowd.  I have started making cards for my kids when it is their birthday and just show them a little more attention on their day to make them feel more special.

            Continuing on the topic of individual attention this is one reason that I believe that the kids like to be tutored so much; it gives them individuality.  They know that for one hour they have all of my attention and they don’t have to share it with anybody else.  The other day I was astounded by the behavior of one of the girls in my house.  She normally misbehaves in our house and is always causing trouble in the school.  Sometimes she walks out of her classes and just roams around until someone finds her and takes her back to her class.  The other day, when she was roaming around, she found me in the library, where I do my tutoring.  She asked if she could sit with me for a while and I replied “yes,” since it was a free hour for me.  As I worked on lessons for my next tutoring session she sat quietly and looked through addition and subtraction flashcards, which I use for tutoring.  She sat there doing the addition and subtraction for thirty minutes QUIETLY!  She did not say a word to me, did not make any noises, all she did was sit there in silence while I worked.  I was amazed and still am!  I cannot believe that she sat there so quietly and was patient enough to work on addition and subtraction alone.  I have never seen her behave so well.  I have come to the conclusion that the kids are like different people in tutoring because they are able to receive the one-on-one attention that they deserve.

            Outside of school I have started a “Let’s get active” program.  I observed that the boys always get to play soccer, basketball, baseball and just clown around outside.  On the other hand, the girls spend too much time in the house napping, watching television or just sitting inside and not really doing much.  Since, I love to be active in every sense of the world by playing outside, working out, playing a sport or doing yoga in my spare time I have decided to bring my talents to the DR!  Therefore, every other weekend I have started initiating soccer games with the girls from my house, which they seem to enjoy a lot.  Also, whenever I am playing volleyball with the guys or playing basketball my girls have started to ask me if they can play too.  Therefore, it is as if they have become more active and engage in more sports when I am around, which is awesome.  I also have started doing Zumba with the girls’ houses.  I am going to do Zumba with each girls’ house but with one house each month.  Right now I am working with one of the girl’s houses and I can tell that they really get a kick out of it, as do I.  This is my first time doing Zumba but it is really fun and basically is like dancing really fast to up-beat music.  I am glad that I have been able to bring more activities and sports to the girls of NPH-DR, and this is only the beginning.

            Finally, I have learned a big lesson that I shall carry with me through my life.  This lesson goes far beyond my kids, my family and myself because I think it is applicable in all aspects of life when working with others.  The lesson is learning people’s stories can change your perception of them.  To demonstrate, one of my kids is always misbehaving and rarely listens to the teachers when they tell him to do things.  I was always so frustrated with him during the summer and had to talk with his tías and other volunteers about his behavior.  However, after I learned of his story and the rough things that he went through and his life I thought, “how could anyone not love this kid?”  To explain, each year we have sometime called “Visitor’s Day,” where the kid’s family can come and visit them.  For example, if they have grandparents or older siblings that are not able to care for them due to money, health or other circumstances they can come on this day and visit them.  All of the kids get all dressed up and are eager for this day so that they can see their families.  However, the kid that always frustrated me is one of the few who NEVER gets any visitors.  Thus, he misbehaves more on Visitor’s Day because he knows that no one is coming to see him.  Unfortunately, his father wants nothing to do with him and it breaks my heart.  After I found this out I changed my entire attitude towards him.  I started to hug and kiss him each day.  I also started looking forward to see him daily and was sad when I did not see him.  Now when he sees me he always runs and hugs me.  I feel as if he is apart of my family because he always seems to want to impress me and talk to me about things that are going on with him.  I just feel that his behavior has changed now that we have found one another.  I feel bad for judging him in the beginning without knowing his story.  To wrap things up I honestly feel that it is easy for us, as a people, to judge other people without even knowing them.  We judge each other based on way of dress, style of hair, the way that we act, the way that we talk but we don’t know everyone’s stories!  We don’t know why people act the way they do, dress the way they do, talk the way they do or the things they have encountered or have had to overcome in their life.  So I feel that instead of judging people from the beginning we need to take a chance to get to know them.  We never know, one day we could find a great friend in someone that we would have judged or never talked to otherwise.