Last week I started a new side-gig, tutoring middle schoolers after school. It’s a program in Cornelius, a smaller community just west of Hillsboro. The time commitment is just 90 minutes, twice a week, but still managed to make me nervous starting out. I’ve been instructing adults for the last two decades, so it’s been a while since I hung out with kids I didn’t make from scratch.
Compared to my tiny sixth grader at home, seventh and eighth graders are huge. They came bursting into the library study room with coats and backpacks and took a few minutes to settle in. The school has a referral system based on poor performance and the organization sends out a van to pick them up from school and feed them a snack before we get started.
The students all arrived with backpacks that have a day-planner and a Chromebook. These supplies I recognize from my kid’s school as well, so it must be state-wide. What’s different is that their planners aren’t tattered and marked up, but pristine, a bad sign as we are halfway through the school year.
The first order of business was having them write down all the assignments for the coming week in their corresponding calendar spaces. When that was completed, each student got a “scholar dollar,” a Monopoly type currency good for the mobile school store where the students can exchange the coupons for trinkets, key chains and fidget poppers. Once they completed the calendar task some of them moved to put things away. “Wait, now we start on the actual homework due for today.”
This is the part I was dreading—diving into algebra, geometry, social studies and science involving genetics?! I faintly remember some charts with pink and white sweet pea plants in the furthest corner of my mind—so dusty back there. Now it’s all gamified learning where the students click on pigeons with different feather patterns to see what their progeny will look like—ring necked, smooth feathered, white tailed.
The time went by quickly and the students submitted their work online and earned another scholar dollar. The best part was there was a point when all the kids were quiet and doing their homework together. Apparently they had the capacity for the work, but needed the time, space, guidance and motivation.
I felt a lightness on my drive home. I also noticed all the variations of pigeons lined up on the light poles. I too am learning something new every day.
