Goodness gracious... tutoring ending today. This was for a company called Knowledge Points and our location was at the African America Academy in South Seattle on Beacon Hill. I got involved because a good friend of mine dad owns this company... at least for this region of the state. I think he has a center opening up down in tacoma now. Anyway, I thought it was a really good experience... though one of the other tutors had a difference in opinion.

Her name was Tatyana (sp? she's russian). She could not handle the disrespect from the kids. She couldn't handle there rambunctiousness. They're 6th graders. After the kids left today, she gave Nancy (the other tutor) the speech of "It's our fault that the kids were behaving so badly." That, "We should have been more hard on them from the beginning." And a bunch of other things, that I believe was garbage. Nancy had explained to her, many times, that we did not have the support of the administration. For instance, two of the kids started to fighting one day, and the administrations had done nothing to help us out... they just left us to deal with it, but that is not our jobs. Nancy also pointed out that we have no idea where these kids are coming from. Broken homes? Stable homes? Who knows.

We had 3 consistent students. Taylor, Jazzmine (sp?), and Jamiko. I'll be honest, I didn't like Taylor. If there was something that she didn't know how to do, she refused to work for anybody. She was so stubborn and hard headed, she was not pleasant to work with. Jazzmine... is the one that I worked with most of the time. She was a very hard worker and was excited to learn. The problem with her was she's an instigator. The kids had a habit of bickering and sometimes fighting with each other, and most of the time she started it. Jamiko is all around a good kid. He's very smart and was also a very hard worker. He was a character and very funny... but he LOVES the attention. That made it hard for him to stay focus. Out of the three, I would have to say that Jamiko was my favorite. :P

Anyway, I enjoyed this experience despite all the chaos. I enjoyed working with both the tutors and all 3 of the children. Would I do it again? Yes... if I had the same help I did, but honestly, they wouldn't come back. I understand why. Things could have been a lot better. We could have had more support from the administration, which again, was the biggest problem.

So, I might have a chance of tutoring this summer... which I really hope I can. Not sure what the conditions are yet, but I'll let everyone know when I know more. :)