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Kindergarten 10-2-13

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I had the same three students today that I’ve had the past few weeks, just in a different order. They still think I’m picking them – and I still keep insisting that I’m just following the list that I was given. I don’t want other students to think I’m ignoring them. They just don’t need me. Every now and then I’d like to work with a higher-level student to get some perspective. There just isn’t time, though.

S was cheery as always. He just needs a lot of practice. Nothing unique happened with him today. I’m just grateful that he understands me and talks to me in English (mostly). This is not always the case. Sometimes it is half the year before a non-English-speaking student will even start to get that we all aren’t speaking gibberish to him.

J wanted me to show him the letters to use to spell out the word we were working on. I’ll do a lot to help them out but that isn’t helping. That is doing all the work for him. I’d already said the word out loud and sounded it out. Nothing. I then asked him about the first letter of the word, sounding just it out. Still nothing. I then told him what the letter was, hoping he could find it on the board. Nope. Nada. Zilch. We then went through the whole alphabet, letter by letter, and he couldn’t find it.

I changed to another activity. It is best to try something different than stick with the same thing and get a student frustrated. Part of this is practice, and part is building up their confidence. I don’t ever want to frustrate them so that they don’t want to learn. It is important to me that they associate school with fun. But there is also work involved. I can’t do it all for them.

We changed to sight words and he did passably. He got really frustrated that he didn’t recognize some of them, which makes sense since he still does not recognize his letters. I pointed out that this isn’t a test, we are just practicing.

I switched to something else. I had some simple books to read and let him pick one. One of the books had a picture of two people playing checkers. I asked him if he had played that game and he said he had but he lost. I mentioned that it is all about being a good winner and a good loser.

He recoiled at that. “Good loser?!” (Insert interrobang here) I might have just as well said it was ok to walk on your hands all the time. It is amazing how competitive five year olds can be. I’ll tell a story about this from last year another time. Teaching kids how to play games fairly and be good sports is also part of my tutoring. This is just as valuable a skill as knowing your letters.

Then I went and got V. Quickly in, she asked who I needed next. Usually do need someone after her, but today she was last. I said “I need you” and gave her a smile. Her face completely lit up.

Isn’t this all we ever want to hear, that we are important, that we are special?

She talked a lot about her Dad and her Mom’s boyfriend, but not about her Mom. After the story from the teacher from last week that makes sense. Talking about Mom would be painful. I heard today from the teacher that Mom will be in the hospital for two months. This has to be a chronic problem.

Kindergarten 9-18-13 Yellow jacket sting and rules.

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I missed kindergarten last week. My car wouldn’t start. Nearly two thousand dollars later I’m back, ready to try again. Then just before getting ready to go I got stung while doing yard work.

There are small yellow and black stinging bugs on the way into my house. I think they are yellow jackets. They are right next to the steps to the front door. There is no easy way around them since they are directly on my path into my house.

The ivy has grown up nearby and I need to trim it. They think otherwise. They think I’m threatening them. I got stung twice before, about a month ago. I’ve found I’m not allergic to their stings fortunately, but they sure don’t feel nice.

I went inside and doctored up my sting. I’d gotten stung on my earlobe. It could have been worse. I should have worn a headscarf like I’d thought I was going to, but I didn’t. I shouldn’t have waved around at the bug when it got near my ear, but I did.

When it was time to leave about thirty minutes later, I walked carefully by them. I was terrified. If these things read fear I was an encyclopedia. But I kept walking. I prayed, afraid, but I kept walking. I think there is something to this. It isn’t about not being afraid. It isn’t possible to not feel fear all the time. But I didn’t let it stop me. I kept praying, and I kept walking.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter what you are feeling. It matters that you just keep going.

So I got to school and I had V. again. I could tell she just wasn’t into learning today. Maybe she just isn’t ready for school yet. Her Mom thinks this too. It took a bit to figure out if she was playing or just wrong. She would count two cars as 6 by going over them again and again. This happened a lot. I’m only able to be there for an hour so I told her we were done and went to the next person on my list. Quality over quantity, after all.

It was J., a boy I worked with briefly the first week I was there. He was very eager to show me how much he knows, and bragged about it. I was ready to be dazzled after the first student. He was fabulous with his numbers. He put everything in order and did it quickly. He’s still counting on his fingers but then again so do I sometimes.

Then he wanted to show me that he could write his name. It is a long name and he did well until the end. He wasn’t sure what the last letter was, and wanted me go to his desk where his name was written for a prompt for him. It took me a little bit to understand what he wanted. I’ve since confirmed that he is in speech therapy. I realized he wanted to see his name written so I wrote it for him on the white board. He was very surprised that I knew how to write his name.

Then we started to work on matching capital letters to little letters. This did not go as well as the counting did. The biggest problem was that he likes every letter in the alphabet that is in his name, but not any of the other ones. Now, all told that is a fairly large percentage of the alphabet, but still it’s not going to cut it. You have to know them all.

I went to find the wooden alphabet board and we worked using that. There are a lot of different tools to use, and I’ll try them all. It was interesting to watch him work. He had very specific ways of doing things and ways he expected things to be. It turns out that he is having problems making friends because of his need for rules.

Sometimes rules get in our way. Sometimes we use rules to make things make sense. Sometimes our home lives don’t make sense so we cling to rules. Then the rules start to strangle us.

People don’t always follow rules. We all do things a little bit differently. Some things need to be the same, otherwise we will have chaos. We can’t arbitrarily decide what letters look like for instance. But some things have wiggle room.

So it was slow going. I’ve asked to work with him again. He reminds me of my husband. I want to save him. I want to rescue him from the pain of these rules. I can see a certain sadness in his eyes. I can tell there are a lot of rules at home, and they don’t always make sense.

But then am I helping, really?

That pain of being stung this morning gave me a valuable lesson. I’d learned about walking through my fear. I’d learned that it was ok to be afraid. Perhaps this pain is something he needs to walk through too. I can be there to cheer him on, and guide, but I can’t rescue him.

Sometimes pain is our greatest teacher.

Kindergarten 9-4-13. Today’s post is brought to you by the letters H and S.

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Today I only had time for two of the children on my list. I’ve had them every Wednesday since the beginning of school, and I have a feeling I’ll have them until the end of school. Every year there is at least one that needs a little help getting over that wall.

Both kids are sweet, but they just don’t yet get the work that is required yet. Kindergarten is a lot of fun. There are a lot of kids to play with. There are a lot of bright colors. Everything looks like a game. But it is deadly serious work. If you can’t understand your letters, then you can’t read. Then you are stuck in low paying jobs. It is a terrible hole to be in. A lot of your life depends on kindergarten. But, it is still the first month. There is time.

The girl, V, is a native English speaker. Her sister was in this same classroom last year but I rarely worked with her. She could have taught me some things. Right now I’m tempted to tell V she needs to ask her sister for help. She is glad to be in school, and that alone is a good thing. Just learning how to be in school is an important lesson.

Today she seemed obsessed with the letter H and why the human body does what it does. We were working with a board of wooden letters, cut out and colorful. Under each letter was a picture of a word that had that letter as the first letter. Under the letter H was a picture of a heart. She looked at me with her big brown eyes and asked me “why do our hearts beat?” Sometimes the sheer randomness of kindergartners knocks me off guard. When we came across the letter P she screwed up her face and said “Pee? Why do we have to pee? My Mommy pees.”

I swear, I can’t make this stuff up.

The boy, S, is from Mexico. He too is sweet but very distracted. Today his favorite letter was S. Everything was S. H was S. W was S. I think he likes S so much because it is the first letter of his name. He can write his name, sort of, with a lot of prompting, but the other letters are beyond him. Perhaps he doesn’t see the relevance of them. They don’t apply to him, so why learn them?

This is a hurdle all teachers have to face – making the lesson meaningful. The students often think, “Why learn anything just for the sake of learning?” This is a fast-paced world. If it doesn’t have any application to my life, what is the point? The sad part it all is applicable, but it is impossible to explain that in a way that they will believe. You have to live it to understand it.

Today it was reinforced that if someone wants to learn, they will. If they don’t, they won’t. When I first started showing up to tutor, I felt that it was really important that the kids really work hard and get this material. I was really eager for them to learn how to read. But over the years I’ve realized that it is up to them to do the work. I have to be there. They have to meet me in the middle. I present the material in an engaging way and cheer them on when they get it right. But it is up to them to pay attention and do their homework so there is improvement from week to week. I can’t do it for them. If they can’t read by the end of kindergarten, it isn’t my fault.

This is applicable all over life. People have choices. They can choose to learn or not. They can choose to be ready and awake and alert, or they can choose to be asleep. Perhaps it isn’t a choice. Perhaps it is part of their character or their upbringing. Perhaps their parents don’t value education, so they don’t work with them. Perhaps their parents have no education, so they can’t work with them.

Not all baby birds fly. This is a hard lesson. I want them all to do well, but I can’t do the work for them. Again, this is still just the first month. I’ll keep going every Wednesday, and keep trying. I’ll try every trick I have to get them to engage with the material. There is still time, but the longer it takes for them to understand the alphabet, the further behind they are.

Musings from kindergarten – time and attention

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I have to be very flexible when I’m tutoring. Each child is different. Each child learns at a different pace. Each one finds different things interesting. I have to adapt myself to them.

The way I want to teach isn’t always the way they want to learn. So instead of expecting them to conform to where I’m coming from, I get down to where they are. I’m here for them, not myself. I already know my letters. They are the ones who have to do the work. I’m there to cheer them on when they get it right.

Of course, sometimes they aren’t really interested in learning at all and they really want to play. Sometimes it is hard to tell. Learning looks a lot like playing sometimes. But when it looks a lot more like playing than learning it is time to redirect. Sometimes I’ll say, “Do you want to work on this, or do you want to go back to class?” I’m happy either way. If they aren’t ready to work, there are three more after them who are.

It is interesting the number of kids who say “pick me!” They want to work. Getting to work with a tutor isn’t seen as a negative thing. This is excellent. There is no stigma. The kids who I work with aren’t seen as being a little slower, or having a harder time getting concepts. It is a treat, a favor, to work with me. This makes my job easier, but also harder. I’d love to work with them all but I only have an hour a week. There isn’t much quality time available so I have to have a list of who needs me.

I don’t pick the children I tutor. I get a list from the teacher, in order of need. I start at the top and go as far as I can. Sometimes the list has five children on it, and I only get to the first two. That is OK. Those two needed more attention that day and were willing to work. If I can get them in that frame of mind, I’m running with it.

One day I worked with the same child for three quarters of the hour. That was a big deal. Oscar was from Mexico, and it took half the year for him to even answer me back in English. Actually, I don’t even think he was answering me in Spanish most of the time. I think Oscar was speaking Oscar. He was very enthusiastic about it, but he didn’t make any sense. I have a feeling that his parents thought that he was speaking English but they didn’t know English so they didn’t know any better.

That day I was reading a book to him, and I was using every trick I had. How many ornaments are there on the tree? Where is the yellow box? It may sound silly, but there is a lot more to reading a book than just the words. I wanted to fully engage him.

Mostly, I wanted him to hear English. If you are going to live here, you have to know English to get by. Being able to read and write is certainly nice, but if you can’t understand and speak it, you are in a world of hurt.

By the end of the year, Oscar still wasn’t doing very well with writing and reading. He would cover up the words on the page and look at the pictures. I’m not sure that he understood that I wasn’t just making up the story. I’m not sure that he didn’t get that those words weren’t just squiggles. He at least was responding to my questions in English. Mission accomplished. It wasn’t much, but it is a start.

Sometimes the teacher will assign a child to me who is doing very well. We’ll go through the lesson that we’ve been assigned, and she will do fabulously. I’ll ask the teacher why I was assigned this student. Often it is simply that the child needed a little attention and time. Sometimes it is because Mom is not at home – she is still back in their home country. Or Dad has been deported. Sometimes it has nothing to do with learning letters and numbers, but everything to do with personal attention.

It is amazing how simple it is to offer a little bit of time, and how much good it does.

Easy (schooled by a kindergartner)

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I have tutored ESL kindergartners for two years now. I participate in a program that is sponsored by the Mayor of my city. He allows Metro employees to tutor in Metro schools on work time for an hour a week. Since I have a degree in English and I’ve tutored students with learning disabilities before, I thought this would be a great thing to do. I paired up with a ESL kindergarten teacher that I knew from my work who is fun and enthusiastic. I wanted to support her in her mission.

The first year I was tutoring ESL students from as close as Mexico and as far away as Uzbekistan. There were some students who were from America that needed a little extra help as well, as the class has a mixed skill level. Many of these children had never been to school or been away from their parents before. There was a lot for them to learn, and it wasn’t all letters and numbers.

But there was also a lot that they taught me.

I remember one time it was raining very hard. I had two girls, one after the other, who wanted easy work. There was something about the rain that made them want to retreat, to not push. It is like comfort food, the easy work.

I had a range of tools to work with. The easy stuff was a board with magnetic letters. We could make words with it or just write out the alphabet and sing the song. I needed it for some of the other students on my list that day, but I was surprised that Mariela and Maftuna both wanted this easy work. They had gotten past that level a month earlier. But today they both insisted on working on the ABCs and singing the song.

I was amazed, and a little frustrated. I wanted them to work, to push, to grow – not to take it easy and go backwards.

I expressed my frustration with Maftuna, the second girl. Why do you want this? This is easy. You can do more than this.

And this tiny girl, this 5 year old who had just learned English this year, looked at me and thought about it. She figured out how to say her mind with the few words she had so far.

She said “It’s easy for you” with the emphasis on the last word.

True. You got me. It is easy for me. But it is hard for her. I’d forgotten. I wasn’t seeing it from her perspective.

This tiny girl with the dark eyes and serious face schooled me.

Maftuna reminded me that not everything is always easy for everyone. Sometimes we need a break. Sometimes we need to retreat to old standbys. Sometimes we need the simple stuff. And sometimes we forget that just because it is easy for us doesn’t mean it is easy for someone else.

We forget how much work we had to put in to get where we are. The marathoner may not know how to encourage the starting runner. The master gardener may not remember how hard it is to get the mix of fertilizer right to keep the plants alive. Sometimes you have done something so often and for so long you don’t even remember how you got to where you are.

Part of compassion is seeing things from other people’s viewpoints. Sometimes that means literally getting down to their level. That day I was put in my place by a 5 year old from Uzbekistan. And I’m glad. She gave me a gift that day.