dearmrjason: weeks keep flying by

[this part is for my journal for class but i'm putting it here because i'm too lazy but if youre BORED continue...]

went to tutoring again today. i must say that they were much less rowdy than they were the first day that i started volunteering there. They were quieter during most parts of class even though there were moments when it was pure chaos. I think that one thing that i learned today was that the kids don't always listen to me. Mr. Blake (the teacher) gains a lot of respect from the kids because he's been with them since the beginning of the year but also because the kids see him as an authority figure. Mr. Jason, on the other hand, is just the tutor. They're much less likely to listen to me when i tell them to pay attention as opposed to when Mr. Blake tells them to pay attention. I think that it comes from the fact that he can flip their behavior cards when they're misbehaving and i can't really do that. or maybe it's a mix of other factors, i'm not so sure yet. I also noticed that kids will also take advantage of unknowing adults. I don't know the rules around the school so i'll ask the kids themselves if they are allowed to be doing this or that and they usually tell me that it's ok. but i learned today that i'm too trusting of these kids. i think i give them more credit than i should. probably because i'm a trusting person like that. But from now on it's more appropriate to ask an authority figure if something is ok rather than the kids themselves. not that they're bad kids or anything.

one quote that a kid said to me that really stood out was "you should be an example for us." In class they were doing improv and once you performed in front of the class you could choose another student to go up next. one student called me to be next but i said that i couldnt because it was for the students only. a girl turned around and said "you should be an example for us." as in i should go and perform but i took it as more than that. I read John Wooden's book and it talked about how "no written word, no spoken plea, can teach our youth what they should be. Nor all the books all the shelves. It's what the teachers are themselves," and this is what came to mind when the girl said this. It's true. i do believe that it's who the teachers are themselves to the students. A teacher can't pretend to be "moral, loving, respectful, and considerate. If they really are, and not just pretending, children will follow." So a teacher should lead by example. And the morals and other things that they wish to see in their students should pour out from them in the first place.

another quote that stood out was "i wish there was a tutor everyday." After helping out JP and JG with homework for about 15 minutes i really felt like i had contributed to these kids. I remember the first day i was there i couldnt help them with homework because i didn't know how to explain to them how to multiply and reduce fractions. But today i really felt like i could teach them how to work with positive and negative integers. And even after i worked with they demonstrated that they knew how to do it. i was really happy about that. When we were going back to class i asked them if other tutors came during the week what i wasnt there and they said i was the only one. that's when JP said "i wish there was a tutor everyday." It's not like i made this giant impact on their hw or anything but my presence there helped clear up things that they might have struggled with on their own at home. Mr. Blake is there but there are a lot of other students he had to tend to as well. I'm glad that i could work with them in a pair to teach them how to do the homework and how to do it properly but it made me sad to think that there wasn't more help there during the rest of the week. I feel like if people could get paid to go and help out in classrooms, not even a lot, maybe even one more per classroom it would make a tremendous impact on the students and their learning. maybe if california wasn't 34th out of the 50th states in terms of spending on education for K-12 we could spend more on tutors or other resources. ok enough about my fieldwork.