Monday 10/25/10 My First Breakthrough (prompt #5)

I went to the Down City Center today to tutor for the fourth time. The students are getting use to me and even though there is a language barrier we are beginning to communicate. Today two girls needed black pens to do their math assignment. I normally tutor in English and History but the boy I was assigned was promised half an hour of Facebook time before his tutoring session so I was free for a bit. The girls asked to use my pens and I told them they could, if I could look at their math homework. The assignment was pretty easy... on their worksheet there were several triangles that related to each other (isosceles, right, equilateral) the girls needed to pick one color and circle all the triangles that matched. The next part was to break down larger triangles into smaller, congruent triangles, by drawing only a certain amount of lines (2,3,4,6) and then to write an expression that explained the process. I knew I could handle this kind of math so I asked the girls to stay with me. Another tutor from Brown University saw that I had engaged some students and came to sit with us. Together we worked with the girls. It took a while to explain the directions because of our language barrier but with a little scrap paper and a series of pictures the two of us explained the objective. I think I built some trust with these two girls because they continued to work with the English speaking Brown tutor right next to me until almost six o' clock.

I was proud of my breakthrough so when Martin, the boy who needed English help came over, I was excited to dive in. He hands me his English assignment. He has to read the first act of The Crucible and breakdown some dialogue. He also needed to explain "who was speaking" from dialogue context clues. The second part was easy because the dialogue was on the ditto along with a description of the characters so we started with that one. I asked Martin if he understood the instructions and he said "yes, but you need to write for me 'cause I can't spell in English." I refused and explained that he simply had to copy the character's names next to each dialogue box and the character's names were on the top of the paper. He was angry. I think he is such a trouble maker that other tutors do his work for him so they don't have to deal with him. He insulted me a lot "you are a lazy tutor" "Juan said he got an 89 on his English paper with you because you actually helped him. Why won't you help me?" I just kept asking questions "can you describe any of the characters in The Crucible?" Do you understand how the characters are related?" He finally stopped trying to scare me away and in a last ditch effort to free himself said "I can't do this 'cause I don't have my book." I was ready for this so I told him The Crucible is public domain and we could download it on the Internet. In five minutes we had printed the character descriptions and the first act. We worked together for an hour on the two dittos that I felt most students could have completed in twenty minutes. If he had stopped complaining about the length of the first act (16 pages) and worked hard it would have gone much faster but I refused to let him make me angry enough to start giving him the answers. When his Mom came to get him I introduced myself and told her her son worked hard today. She looked impressed.

After Martin left, Rob, the director of the Center told me he has never had a single tutor willing to sit with Martin that long. In fact he rarely finishes an assignment before he makes a tutor or another pupil so angry that Rob has to ask him to leave. This kid has learned how to waste time and cause problems but when you don't react to his childishness he actually is very bright. The program is mandatory and Rob reports the weekly time attended per student to their schools so Martin can not get up and leave. If Martin is there next week on Monday, Rob said he is mine again. If Martin's mom comes in again I think I might invite her to come in early some Monday so we can work with him together. I think seeing how they interact might help me make more progress with him.