By far my favourite part of my job is the tutoring I do on Wednesdays and Fridays. I have the sweetest girl in the world as my student. Let's call her Rosalie. I call her Miss Rosalie because that's what her mom calls her in all our meetings and it does suit her.

Miss Rosalie and I meet twice a week for 45 minutes and attempt to make sense of the mess that is pre-algebra and language arts in a gifted school. She has developmental issues that make the curriculum even more difficult than it is meant to be, but she works tirelessly to keep up. I have watched this child spend three hours on a homework that takes others 30 minutes and she's never complained to me about the amount she's given. I was told when I started working here that I would be taught by some of my students instead of the other way around, and though I scoff at the cliche of it all, no one has taught me more about effort and perseverance than this student. She is optimistic in the face of her own failures and I find that incredible in a 10 year old child.

Part of the reason I love tutoring her is because I get to use my psychology degree. One of the things we studied in school was how to access a child who does not learn in a conventional way. I particularly enjoyed my classes on the history and theories of child development, and an intro to human development and education. I've gotten several compliments from Rosalie's mother, and I owe my thanks to both my stubborn refusal to outgrow my imagination and my teachers in school (both high school and college).

Ive adopted a blend of styles. She seems to learn best when presented with a concrete image to hang on to. I guessed at this approach because I know children are still learning how to think in abstract terms at this age and pre-algebra is all about the abstract. You have to imagine why things work.

Now, Miss P is convinced I'm a complete kook based on my technique. And if it helps Rosalie for me to act the fool, then I will continue to make cat noises and purposely make mistakes in front of her until she is comfortable enough to learn (another thing learned in school--comfort is essential to learning well).

What might this kooky techniques be, you might ask?

In order to learn absolute value, I had to make the concept something she could picture. So, negative numbers are sad. They're low. They need a break from the pressures of school. What do I do when I'm sad? Why, I get in the elevator and push all the buttons! At the end of an elevator ride, my mood is...elevated hehe Anyway, the number comes out happy, or positive. It doesn't explain why this is true (and her mom probably won't thank me for an elevator ride that goes on forever) but I challenge you to tell me why absolute value signs work the way they do | |

Even my friend the applied math major didn't know.

Our next problem concerned rounding. Miss Rosalie could recognize the position of the number but didn't know where to go from there. So we turned the number to be rounded into a cat, and the number next to it a dog or a mouse depending on whether it's 5 or higher, or below 5. Cats get puffed up and bigger when they're scared of dogs (add a digit), and the dog runs away. Cats eat mice (yum) and the mouse disappears.

Maybe be strange but it works. On that test she managed to score a 90%! When your class average is just scraping a pass, that's not too shabby.

Even if her grades never improve, I know I make the learning somewhat more enjoyable so that's enough for me to act like an idiot. It comes naturally anyway.