Almost a Year Later
About a year ago, I announced on this blog that Katie and I were expecting a little girl. Well, that little girl is almost ten months old, is cruising and clapping, is “eating” solid foods (which all end up on her lap), and is trying so hard to say “doggy”. I like to remind her that she’s kind and brave and creative and loving and hardworking.
Brave is a big one if you think about it because everything she does is brand new to her. Try to stand? Never done it before and yet she made it for 20 seconds or so while holding a full water bottle in her two tiny hands. Everything she attempts is an adventure, and we love how self-motivated she is. She doesn’t stand or cruise or clap or anything for us. She does it because, I can already tell, she’s an adventurous and brave little girl.
So why is this relevant? First of all, the few people who read this have followed the TriTutoring journey and know how passionate I am about what we do and how we do it. Our number one goal is to help raise student confidence. Learning is brave, asking for help is brave, and trying new things is brave. Our students are brave.
There is a reason I’ve tried to stay away from calling Hailey “smart” in my little affirmations, though I did at first. You can tell me I’m such a millennial parent, but I don’t take that as an insult. Hailey is smart because she is brave and hardworking and all of these other things. Smart is the side effect, not the trait that defines her.
There will be things in life that are hard for her. She will get a bad grade at some point and wonder how smart she really is. In those moments, I hope she is able to dig deep and remember that she will still work hard and try new things and figure it out, even if that means asking for help.
Some of TriTutoring’s students have asked for tutoring, while others have been prompted by a parent or teacher. Asking for help and even just accepting help is brave and shows a willingness to admit you aren’t great at something on your own. I hope TriTutoring tutors always display compassion that reminds students that you won’t always be great at everything by yourself. That’s why we are here. The student is brave and hardworking. We are just there to help them convert those awesome traits into an understanding of the material. So, if a kiddo is tutored, I hope we all give them a round of applause because, high or low grade, they are brave.
Exciting Happenings!
For everyone, the last three years have been weird, to say the least. Between loss and fear, stress and confusion, it’s been sort of a mess. Of course, that doesn’t mean there weren’t moments of joy and celebration during the worst of COVID.
For Katie (my wife) and me, it’s been exciting in other ways, too. Katie is due in May with the newest member of our family, Hailey Elizabeth. We are so thrilled to welcome her into our lives and are delighted to open this next chapter. May is coming up quickly, and we are getting “ready”, or as ready as someone can be for their first child. Bette (the dog) doesn’t have a clue what she’s in for.
I would categorize my feelings as gratitude and “preparatory excitement”. As we get closer to the big day, I’m focused on getting things in order to make that transition as smooth as possible, even though I have fully accepted that it will be utter chaos. It’s hard to believe that TriTutoring LLC will be three years old at around the same time that Hailey joins us!
Doing my best to set up a Pack n’ Play
I made the choice to keep TriTutoring going, even as my responsibilities grow and my priorities shift in the coming months. Many people have warned us both to not lose ourselves in this next chapter, and I truly define myself by TriTutoring. My job in software is a job, and TriTutoring is my passion project and a huge part of my identity.
Thank you all for making TriTutoring something that is worth the work. Here’s to adding on another wonderful adventure to my days!
2023 is a Year to Acknowledge Limits
My last post was in July (oops…), and a lot has happened since then! I got a promotion at my software job and am now a team lead. I have been teaching Math 101 at Simmons University again, but this time with their remote program serving adult students. I have worked hard to keep both TriTutoring and TriTogether chugging along, less concerned with growth and more focused on giving everyone a positive experience. The list goes on.
One thing I have become incredibly aware of over the last 6 months or so is that we all have limitations. There are things that, when we stretch out of our comfort zone to reach new goals, won’t work out. A friend of mine was just saying to me that when we try, when we reach to see what we can do, we grow from that whether we “succeed” or not. I have always agreed with the growth part, but I think the potential for failure is scary for everyone. For me, fearing failure often leads me to fixate on the details of the situation that could lead to a bad outcome. The what-ifs are a killer!
Why am I going through all of this on my TriTutoring blog? What does this have to do with our students, tutors, or families? Everything! As I go into the new year, I plan to transition how I handle many of my responsibilities and reprioritize with the goal of still “succeeding”, but acknowledging that this success may look different.
As I said, I’m far more focused on making sure those involved in TriTutoring, on both sides, have a great experience and leave with a new level of confidence, than with growing the company. I’m happy where we are, my goal has never been to take over the universe and redefine tutoring, and I think we are doing a great thing for our students and families. With TriTogether, I am trying to have a similar mentality. The goal is for the students involved to grow as learners and for us to help contribute to a more equitable system. I think we are doing that, and I have to remind myself that we don’t have to work with thirty students a week for that to be the case.
With regard to TriTutoring, I’ve been racking my brain since I started in May 2020 for ways to not do it all myself. How can I offload some of the responsibility and stress - I do have a full time job, a part time job as an adjunct, a small business, and now a nonprofit - without feeling like I’ve lost control of the what-ifs that could cause us to fail? Luckily, over the last two and a half years, I’ve learned a lot about what those what-ifs are, about what parts of the experience are important to our students, about how to help tutors grow in their roles, and about where TriTutoring fits into the world.
I’m excited that I’ll be getting a little help on things as we roll into 2023. I’m trying to remember that I’m not giving up anything; I’m getting support and expertise from someone on this project that I’ve loved so much. So, if you see another email added to a tutoring thread (of course, I’ll still be there) or if you notice any tiny changes, that’s why! This is my way of helping TriTutoring flourish beyond my limitations, and I hope I can trust you all to understand this and to give honest feedback if we can do better.
Studying for the SAT - Updated
Open and download the updated SAT prep ebook by clicking on the cover!
We Can’t All Volunteer
Previously, when parents asked me what their children should do to boost their resumes and college applications, I would suggest volunteering for something they truly cared about. It shouldn’t be about a one-time “this would look pretty good” opportunity. It should be something they can speak to with passion. It should be something that demonstrates their dedication to what they care about.
This sounded like great advice, but it really wasn’t, and I know I’m not the only one who has been spreading this thought. It says to students that having the privilege to volunteer is the only way they can get a leg up, and not every student has the time or resources to do this. Maybe they don’t have the connections to get into a more selective volunteer program or the money to travel. Maybe they can’t get a ride, or maybe they have an actual job.
What if they work in a coffee shop, they’ve worked there for two years, and because of this they’ve never had a long term volunteer experience or been in ten clubs and sports? This is where we need to change the dialogue. I won’t promise the job is better than the ten clubs and volunteering and being the captain of the soccer team, but I will say it’s at least as impressive. It shows dedication. It shows responsibility. It shows maturity. It’s not as if these students said to themselves “I would hate to play sports so I’d rather work at Target” or “volunteering isn’t for me”. These students realized that, for whatever reason, an afterschool job was the way to go.
So, instead of suggesting that a student volunteer for something they’re passionate about, I should be suggesting that a student find something they can commit to that demonstrates their best qualities, whether that be maturity, compassion, dedication, or whatever they want to show the world. Let us set students up for success instead of implying to them that they have to do what only some have the privilege to do and what doesn’t necessarily show their passions and best traits.
Holding Students Accountable
When it comes to TriTutoring, we have a very low “no-show” rate. Students are often choosing to be tutored and have asked their parents for this service, and even if that’s not the case, parents are paying for the sessions so getting the most out of that time is top of mind.
TriTogether is sometimes a bit different, as I’ve learned over the last few months. Students may see tutoring as more of a “last resort” to pass a class, foster parents may be overwhelmed by the many commitments that their foster child adds to their day (school meetings, visitations, etc.), and there is inevitably something different about receiving a free service, even if the student’s education is still a high priority. So, the “no-show” and cancellation rate for TriTogether is sadly much higher.
The struggle that follows is the balance between holding students accountable (“you signed a contract that says you’ll show up, and I’m going to hold you to that”) and understanding the situation. My view on this balance is that we focus on teaching students the meaning of responsibility and commitment; we understand they may be fifteen, may not have had such scheduled responsibilities, and may (frankly) hate school. So, how do we hold students accountable to a promise they have made while still giving them the opportunity to learn what this accountability truly means?
That is not a rhetorical question! This isn’t easy. We want to, always, welcome mistakes and show them a better route. We want to, always, respect that tutor’s time and commitment. And we want to, always, have the priority be their learning, both about commitments and academics. Do we add a three-strike policy? They did, after all, sign a contract that makes it very clear they can only stay in the program if they show up. Do we impose a required check-in with me and their social worker when they don’t show up? This would, maybe, remind them of the support they have surrounding them even outside of their tutoring sessions.
If you have ideas, I welcome them. Happy May!
And I was doing so well!
And yet, now it’s April and I haven’t written an update in months. Almost two years into the adventure of TriTutoring LLC (which started May 2020), I can finally say it has settled into some sort of rhythm. There’s still a ton to do, both short term and long term, but I can confidently say that the pride-to-stress ratio is increasing.
In a sense, having started TriTogether Corp (in December 2021) has put things in perspective and made TriTutoring LLC feel like it’s in a good cycle. I choose the word “cycle” because some weeks have 20 sessions and others have eight, and I am absolutely fine with that. Having TriTogether in its earliest stages has reminded me what the start of TriTutoring felt like: total chaos and constant to do lists. Instead of focusing on the stress of TriTogether, I am choosing to (read: trying to) focus on the fact that TriTutoring is proof that I can push through that early chaos and create something.
TriTogether has two tutors, two students, and has had a total of 5 sessions. More volunteer applications and student referrals are coming in.
If you’re interested in speaking to me about either TriTutoring or TriTogether, please do feel free to reach out!
It’s been… Challenging?
Happy New Year! By now, you’ve probably seen on every social media account I have (which is too many) that I am in the process of starting a nonprofit, TriTogether Corp. The inspiration for this can’t really be pinpointed, by the final straw was TriTutoring’s fundraiser for The Gifted Crate. When you take a step back and remember that there are kids who don’t get to feel special on their birthdays, educators are forced to take an extra step: how on Earth can these kids be expected to fully embrace their education when they don’t know where they’ll be sleeping?
Long story short, TriTogether will aim to match up and support volunteers and students and provide academic services. Our goal is to work with students who cannot access tutoring due to cost or accessibility and whose circumstances make it difficult for them to get the most out of their in-school education.
TriTutoring is something I truly believe in. I believe some students need additional support, I believe in building confidence through a positive relationship with an educator, and I believe we can make a difference. TriTogether aims to give this same benefit to students who don’t have access to services like those that TriTutoring provides.
In 2022, TriTutoring will give 25% of profits to get TriTogether off the ground. Interested in getting involved. Know anyone who may want to volunteer or help? Please learn more at www.tritogether.org and get in touch with me: hannah@tritogether.org
In 2022, I want to reach for what I know I’m capable of, while accepting that sometimes I’ll fail and fall, in all parts of my life. I wish you all a year of healthy growth, whatever that means to you. 2020 and 2021 cannot be summed up in one blog post, and “challenging” would be an understatement, but with a new business, new software job, new teaching position, and new home with my wife, I have to say it was definitely a time of growth. TriTogether is that next step, both for me personally and towards a goal of expanding educational support to more kids.
The Gifted Crate
I met Mary through a Women in Business group on Facebook, of all places, and was immediately impressed with her dedication to both her business and her nonprofit. She and her husband run an organization called The Gifted Crate. As their website says:
The Gifted Crate believes that birthday celebrations are a crucial developmental milestone for all children. Children placed in foster care have experienced some type of trauma or disruption to their home life and deserve to feel celebrated and loved on their special day. Additionally, foster parents often struggle to fund a special birthday celebration. This is where we come in!
The Gifted Crate provides a custom birthday-in-a-box to children and teens in foster care throughout Massachusetts. With the help of DCF, we identify these children along with their likes and interests. Our birthday crates include a boxed cake mix, frosting, candles, plates, napkins, and customized gifts based on that child's wishes.
How cool is that?
That’s why I am doing a fundraiser for her awesome program, and TriTutoring is offering a free tutoring session to the fundraiser’s largest donor (which can be gifted to a friend if you don’t need a session).
Together, we can bring more joy and celebration to the lives of children who, like your children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and friends, deserve something special for their special day! Please join me in donating to The Gifted Crate through the link below by the end of 2021. The winner of the free TriTutoring session will be announced in the new year!
Taking Chances
In August 2018, during my time as an office manager between teaching and software, I reached out to a few local libraries, probably five or so, asking if they had lists of tutors they suggest to students and parents who ask. I was consistently told, by those that answered, that they didn’t do that as a policy since it’s a paid service, which made sense. They were all polite about it, understanding that I was just trying to get my name out there.
I thought about it and realized I still had something to offer them, so I followed up with a few of the librarians who had replied to me and asked if they would be willing to host a free college essay seminar for students and parents. The librarians replied saying they didn’t think attendance would be high enough, that they doubted there was a need, or with general skepticism. I don’t blame them! Here I was, trying to sell a service to their patrons and trying to get them to host an event, and they had no idea who I was or why they should trust me to bring something to the table.
Tara, the Children’s Librarian at Taft Library (Mendon) said she’d consider it. We exchanged endless emails and planned an event for October 2018. I just looked back at the flyer we used; my old, very ugly logo makes me want to cry, but more importantly I think back to the class: a packed room of students and parents and me just living a dream.
After the event, I sent Tara an email thanking her for taking the chance and helping run such a successful event. This was Tara’s response. It still makes me emotional.
The best part is that, immediately after this, the email thread went from “thank you” messages to “what’s next” messages. We knew we had something real going for us. Tara also went ahead and sent this email to a local librarian group, which started what has become a huge part of TriTutoring’s business and, more importantly, a favorite part of my work.
I have run seminars and workshops at about five libraries, but Taft will always be different. Taft Library, and specifically Tara, will always be the one that took a chance on me, that could see through my email’s “sales pitch” and realize my passion for education was real.
Now, Tara and I text about what’s for dinner, what our dogs are up to, what we are getting for family for the holidays, the weather, and anything else that comes up. Tara knows when I’m stressed because Tara is one of “my people”. Sometimes, amidst a friendship I truly value, we still plan an event for Taft.
Taking a chance on someone is scary. Your reputation is at stake if they don’t live up to the story they’re telling. Tara, I guess, said “she seems legit” and went for it, and continues to do so as I bring her new (untested) ideas. We’ve done college essay seminars, SAT workshops, discussions for parents, and more.
I’ve talked on this blog a lot about the chance I took in officially starting TriTutoring and in growing the company. I’ve talked a lot about how I grew through the process and how wonderful the opportunity has been. I’ve thanked the students, parents, and tutors for contributing and my family and friends for empowering me to take on this exciting journey as TriTutoring became something I had never imagined.
I missed an important person, a person whose impact on TriTutoring goes back to August 2018. A person who took a chance on me when others, with good reason, didn’t take that risk.
Thank you, Tara.
Part One - My LinkedIn
I was chatting with someone the other day who I am about to start working with on a side project. She started by telling me that she had done some research on me. Like most people (I think), I got worried. I’m not sure what I worried she would find, but I worried that she already felt she knew me. She quickly followed this up with, “It sure looks like you have three jobs…” The cat was out of the bag. She knew that, at the present moment, I am a software engineer, an adjunct professor and, as you all know, a small business owner. Turns out all you have to do is go to my LinkedIn to know I like to be busy.
The last few weeks have been draining. My amazing job in software has been hectic in a way that, mostly, I appreciate, but that means I end my “normal” workday tired and ready for bed. You can also imagine that November is a big month for tutoring, whether because a student wants to take the December SAT, a student is rushing to finish their college essays, a student (or parent) got a not-so-wonderful progress report, or the material is getting tough in school. November is the perfect storm of tutoring chaos, and onboarding a new student, tutor, match, etc. is not trivial. What better time than now for me to revamp my resources for my tutors, as well, right?!
If that weren’t enough, my students at Simmons University have an exam on Wednesday that I want them to be beyond prepared for, and building confidence in students with less-than-awesome experiences in past math classes isn’t so easy. So, I will repeat, the last few weeks have been draining.
After meeting with two tutors about a new student to give them context, holding my office hours, writing up my lesson plans and worksheets for the week, and dealing with scheduling and invoicing for TriTutoring, I got a text from a TriTutoring parent. I almost cried. Her daughter had finished a session with a new tutor and she had some feedback. Let’s be clear. Feedback is not always awesome. Like anyone, I get feedback that I use to grow and learn (in all three jobs), and this is sometimes a bummer. This text, however, was great feedback.
I asked if she would be willing to write something for the website because I didn’t want to post anything with a student or tutor’s name. Her response is on the testimonials page, but I’m going to put it here as well because I want to really dig into it for my next post (which is why this is just Part One). Turns out this blog post has a purpose beyond being a pity party for my busy life… phew!
“TriTutoring and Hannah are hands-down the best tutoring service around. With four children, two of whom have learning disabilities, we have tried many tutors. But Hannah‘s understanding and compassion for what my children need goes above and beyond. The tutors she has set my kids up with have all been phenomenal. I have one child doing online high school and TriTutoring has made all the difference in her ability to comprehend and excel in an online environment. The multi-subject help that they’ve been able to provide my other children has been unlike any we have received in the past. The tutors are knowledgeable and compassionate and work with my kids in the way they learn best. And the college essay help was invaluable. The tutors worked with my son to create the best personal essay possible which resulted in him being accepted to every college he applied to. I cannot say enough about Hannah and the amazing tutors at TriTutoring.”
This is what I needed on a day when I was mentally exhausted with a to-do list that wouldn’t stop growing. For those who know me well and see me when I’m drained, this is why I take my nights and weekends to do TriTutoring. This is the why behind my LinkedIn account.
In my next post, I want to dig into the feedback from Allison because I think it tells us a lot about when and why tutoring works.
Shameless Plus:
Check out TriTutoring LLC on LinkedIn!
Bernadette’s Path to the Library
I had the privilege of speaking with Bernadette Rivard, Library Director at the Bellingham Public Library, about her academic and career journey. I’ve worked with Bernadette in the past on programming, like a college essay workshop at the library, but I was blown away. It’s easy to make assumptions about someone’s path to get from Point A to Point B, but shame on me!
It turns out, working in libraries was a career change for Bernadette after she went back to school for a related masters at Simmons. But it was Bernadette’s undergraduate academic journey that was the most interesting to me. It was not the straight line we often hear about. After high school, she went to college with no major in mind. Paying for college herself, and still unsure of her major after two years in school, she stopped being a fulltime student and increased her hours at the grocery store she had been working at, still taking night classes.
Later, Fitchburg State started a new business degree, so Bernadette went back to school, taking four classes per semester while also working 30 hours a week at the grocery store.
After a less-than-linear undergraduate journey, twelve years in another career, and a masters degree from my alma mater, how did she end up in a library and, more importantly, what did the journey to Library Director teach her? Listen for yourself!
Want to learn more about what Bellingham Public Library has to offer? Check it out!
The Room Where it Happens
For those who have seen or listened to the musical Hamilton, you may know the song “The Room Where it Happens”. Whether or not you rock out to Hamilton in the car, you’ll probably agree that there are sometimes conversations that you’re not privy to but that you’re curious about. It’s natural to think “who got to make this decision and why?” and it can be frustrating when the circumstances around a choice or change feel hidden. Tired of my vague and abstract Hamilton reference? So am I. Let’s cut to the chase and jump into a conversation I had with Blair Dixon, an admissions officer at Brandeis University.
I talked to Blair on Zoom this evening, and I am honestly too excited by her insight and experience to wait a day to write this. I know we at TriTutoring work with students who wish they could better understand the process that occurs “in the room” after their college application is submitted. What’s in a great essay? How do schools decide if there is a mutual fit? I asked Blair if she would be willing to give us a peek into her world.
It turns out that when I’ve told students that their personal statement is an opportunity to tell the admissions committee about their passions and personality, I was right. Phew! Blair explained that the personal statement is the best way to tell the admission officers who you are as a person. “There’s no correct way to do a college essay. I like to tell people to lean on what they think is the mundane.” What do I always say during college essay seminars? If you didn’t go to Antarctica and save the penguins, that’s okay!
If there’s no right way, though, what does Blair look for when reading 100 (yes, a hundred) files a week? “I want to hear your voice. What’s important to you? What do you love?” Blair went on to say, “I love the essays where folks are tapping into their very niche interests. They allow their passion to shine on the page.”
Blair and I also talked a bit about the word “fit”. How does a university find a class of students that are right for the school, while not limiting the incoming class to being carbon copies (throwback right there) of existing and past students? How does an admissions committee ensure a diverse student body that consists of people who can succeed and grow during their time there? Blair explained: “We want students who love to learn, who are always trying to learn more, who are engaged in their communities, and who are perseverant.” These are things the team considers indicators of success, but students should still have their own interests, characteristics, and background. With this understanding, and a series of checks and balances to make sure they get a variety of passions and personalities entering Brandeis, Blair feels they are able to get a bold and quirky group of students who can succeed academically and contribute to the community.
With that said, Blair ended with something that applies to all of us.
“The advice I always give is that life is extremely windy and your life starting now will be extremely windy. There is no correct path; there are multiple great paths that you can take… You will end up in a place that is right for you. There are many places that can be right for you.”
A whole lot to do, but not much to write
It’s been exactly 2 months since I posted about being my whole self. What has my whole self been up to? A whole lot!
I was interviewed for a Simmons University Alumnae Feature a few months back, and the article got posted earlier this month. As implied, I graduated from Simmons when it was still Simmons College, and it was great to speak to the writer about being a software engineer and business owner. The timing ended up being quite a coincidence as I also became a Simmons University adjunct professor this month. I teach Math 101 on Monday and Wednesday mornings on campus, and it has been a blast! I have twenty-four awesome students, a wonderful TA, and get to teach math and be a software engineer, all at once.
Ironically, with all of that going on, there isn’t much to say! I hope everyone is having a wonderful start to the school year and has found a nice rhythm as we move into the fall.
Are you always your best?
I believe it’s important to bring my whole self to everything that I do, whether that be as a software engineer or as the owner of TriTutoring. It’s also important to bring one’s best self. How can one balance this? That was not a rhetorical question... I would love to know! Why do I ask? I ask because, hopefully, you see this dichotomy. Your whole self isn’t always your best self, and that is the same for our students. Students have bad days, sad days, frustrated days, and tired days. How do we encourage them to balance bringing their whole selves and their best selves to the classroom or the Zoom session? I don’t have an answer to this one. Still, with teaching comes the prerequisite of empathy. Helping our students to become their best selves sometimes means dealing with their whole selves when, well, they aren’t at their best.
At TriTutoring, we work with and have worked with a wide range of students. Some students love to learn; we have students who ask their parents to continue sessions over the summer to expand their skills and make the start of the school year easy peasy. We have students who are less excited to be there; it’s not that they hate learning, but they may not be engaged in the subject, may feel too busy for the extra session, or may be frustrated with the difficulty of their work. We have students everywhere in between.
A student must feel safe bringing their whole self to a session, while still being encouraged and empowered to bring their best self to their learning. Again, I don’t have an answer for this tension between “whole” and “best”. I do know students need our support in order to learn. Students need encouragement and confidence in order to grow.
This is less of a blog post and more of a reminder: we all experience this gap between being true to who we are and what we are feeling and being the best version of who we are. As you go about your day, trying to be your best self, it might help to remember that the person who sent the annoying reply-all email to the entire company, the person who didn’t notice the light turn green, the person who left you on hold… they are also trying to fill that gap. Is it always true? Is every person truly working tirelessly to be their best self? Absolutely not, but does it hurt to give them the benefit of the doubt?
Back to the Days of AP Spanish
I think back to taking AP Spanish and think, “wow, where did all of that knowledge go?” I probably should have practiced… Luckily, for students of all ages who are working on their foreign language fluency, I have help! Among other subjects, Meg specializes in helping students learn and gain fluency in Spanish. She joined the TriTutoring team after teaching English to young students in Madrid, Spain. While she can apply her skills in Spanish and teaching to her tutoring sessions, there are new challenges! “By simply being surrounded by it constantly for eight hours of the day, the students were able to pick up a completely different language and be able to speak, read, and write in English, even though for some of them they were just learning to read and write in Spanish as well. I find it’s different for high schoolers. Reading Spanish articles, looking up current events from Spanish speaking countries, listening to Spanish music and podcasts, practicing writing paragraphs in all tenses, and speaking constantly is how older Spanish learners really get better.”
Our students come to us for a variety of reasons, and each tutor brings their own experiences to the session. Besides the subject matter, Meg hopes to bring confidence to students who may need that extra boost.
“I tutor because, when I was growing up, having a tutor or asking for more help often had a negative stigma around it, as if it made a statement about your intelligence. As I got older, and now work in education, I see that asking for help just means you are strong enough to know what you need and how to get it. Whether it’s learning a new language or practicing for the SATs, I have found that most students lack confidence when they first start tutoring. Being able to see them grow and gain this confidence is inspiring to me, and I love being able to be a part of their journey.”
When Meg was asked her main focus within the TriTutoring philosophy, she chose Student Effort. “It doesn’t matter if [students] lack the fundamentals or don’t understand certain strategies because, at the end of the day, if they want to try there is nothing they can’t accomplish.”
Jumping Jacks with Carly
Zoom isn’t always easy. How do the tutors of TriTutoring keep kiddos engaged during online sessions? Well, that’s an interesting question! It is so dependent on the age and the content, but the tutors of TriTutoring are perfecting engagement and digital learning. Carly, one of our fabulous (and one of our first) tutors has worked with young children for years, but she’s learned new methods during the pandemic that have allowed her to keep sessions fun and educational. I asked Carly about these methods and ideas.
“Keeping the younger kids engaged definitely requires me to channel all of my creative energy into planning a session. Games are a key tool I use to help make learning fun. When the kids are engaged in finding matches or moving around a game board, answering educational questions or identifying a word that matches a picture doesn't seem like learning, and the student is more likely to stay focused on the task at hand.”
Regardless of age, learning can and should be fun. “Fun” can mean different things depending on the age group. Maybe it doesn’t mean a game when studying AP Chem, but it still means keeping the content relatable and tangible so that students can dive right in. For younger kids, “fun” might be a game or song. What if that’s not enough to keep a student in their seat? Carly has a fix for that!
“Movement is another tool I use with kids who are particularly active. I use jumping jacks to get kids to remember spelling words. If they can spell the word while multitasking, then they can spell the word anytime, and it makes spelling fun, too! I've also used scavenger hunts when I can tell a student is having trouble sitting still. I'll show them a trick word on the screen, and ask them to find something in the room that matches the word. This is a great way to get kids to familiarize themselves with the spelling of things they see everyday.”
Lastly, I asked Carly which part of the TriTutoring philosophy she felt was the most important.
“How can a student be expected to read a sentence when they never fully grasped the sounds of individual letters? Oftentimes, I find that revisiting the basics at the beginning of a session can help a student succeed later. When a student has a sturdy foundation to work off of, they can revisit it when struggling with more difficult concepts later.”
Foundations are key to everything we do. Students aren’t always sure why they’re stuck, but it’s so frequently a foundational concept. Luckily, Carly clearly has that under control!
“Watching the moment that a student understands a concept is priceless. That moment when a student understands something they have been struggling with is definitely the best part of being a tutor.”
Definition Deep Dive
I think it’s funny when friends call me a business owner or an entrepreneur. I guess, technically speaking, it’s not wrong. There is a business and I am the owner. Entrepreneur comes from the French word, entreprendre, meaning undertake, and TriTutoring has been quite the undertaking. (I did look that up. I do not suddenly know French.)
But what is the modern English definition of entrepreneur? Merriam-Webster (I stopped myself from quoting Wikipedia here) defines entrepreneur as “one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise”. So, maybe my friends and family did their research; maybe they Google’d entrepreneurship, read a few definitions, and rationally determined it was a fair label for me. But did they dig deep enough? Did they think critically enough? (Am I being too ridiculous?)
Enterprise, from the above definition, is defined as “a project or undertaking that is especially difficult, complicated, or risky”. To paraphrase like a good millennial would (shout out to Twitter for proving to me that I cannot write short thoughts), an entrepreneur is a person who manages something and takes on the risk of the complicated thing. Sound familiar? Sounds a lot like parents or teachers!
Where am I going with this convoluted deep dive, which has now ruined the English language for you? Unless you’re going to call teachers entrepreneurs, I’d prefer a different label. Let’s go with a gardener.
Ready for a nicely stretched, to the point of snapping, analogy?
Gardeners take seeds and soil (and probably other things that I would know about if I could successfully grow a plant) and, with patience, dedication, passion, and lots of sun and water, nurture those seeds into something beautiful. Gardeners are in it for both the process and the final product.
I love education. I love working with students one-on-one and watching their confidence grow as their fundamentals strengthen. I love mentoring. I will toot my own horn here and say that I am, coincidentally given the analogy, patient, dedicated, and passionate, when it comes to my tutoring experience, even before it was called TriTutoring. Would that be enough? No.
The sun and water of TriTutoring are the families and tutors who have trusted me with their experience, whether that be as a student, a concerned parent, or a tutor looking to cultivate students’ skills in the areas they are most passionate about. I believe my high school biology teacher would say this is a symbiotic relationship (which I also had to look up). TriTutoring doesn’t just help students grow and tutors be their best. TriTutoring is also nurtured and encouraged by those same people.
Yesterday was TriTutoring LLC’s one year anniversary of being an LLC, which is the one year anniversary of me finally saying “this can grow” to the world. I can definitely say I am proud of myself. Emotionally, it was a risk to take something I cared so much about and let others have a hand in it. More than proud, though, I am grateful. Thank you to the sun and water who chose to grow with TriTutoring. Here’s to another year of growth!
You are not a “Just”
We all know the phrase “all or nothing”. I am here to vehemently disagree with this sentiment. It makes me think of something a teacher once told me: highlighting everything is like highlighting nothing. I see this all the time. Students are trying so hard to find important content and not miss anything that they highlight nearly every line. Then, when they go back, they see that they didn’t really pull out important information… they just made the entire page neon yellow.
The same thing goes for creating an outline. If every sentence in the textbook gets a bullet point on the outline, have you really concisely and conveniently summarized the content? So, I can confidently say, when it comes to highlighting, outlining, summarizing, etc. all IS nothing. But why am I so passionate about this? Do I care that much about neon text or excessive bullet points? No. Well, maybe a little.
More important than study strategies, let’s talk about the work and activities we often load onto students. Somehow, it’s acceptable to say a student “just plays soccer” or “just has an after school job”. I’m sorry… but what?! A school sport is a daily commitment, both in time and energy. An afterschool job is a sign of maturity and responsibility. This is in addition to the demands of school, friends, and family, which we also emphasize are somehow all the top priority.
A student “just plays viola”? No. Let’s reframe. That student is capable of developing a skill, which requires dedication and attention, while also taking on their schoolwork and the stress that automatically comes with being a teenager. A student that does ten activities, that tries to build their resume because of the pressure around them to achieve everything, won’t get to enjoy anything. There is nothing wrong with dabbling around, with experimenting until you find the right fit, but to dabble or take on more for the sake of not starting your activity description with “just” is not fair to students. It’s not fair to any of us.
Adults, I hope, can both relate and empathize with this. You can take on everything or you can dedicate to something. That is a decision we each must make, but dedication is never a “just”. A stay-at-home parent is never JUST taking care of the kids. A part-time worker is never JUST working a few hours a week. Even a CEO is never JUST an executive. We all balance so much in life. Give yourself credit for everything you do. Give your student props for whatever they achieve.
It is not all or nothing.
You are not a list of activities or responsibilities.
You are not a “just”.