Categories

open all | close all

Sponsored By:

Private Tutoring, No Child Left Behind, Foster Care

Read more articles on Life's Nuances and education.

April 21, 2008

Posted by neillevine

About This Editor: I am a writer. Have been writing for other sites, but expect to do most of my future work HERE! My expertise extends from the esoteric such as burning hydrogen to the unpredictability of the stock market and my writing makes me a jack of all trades and exasperated master of none. I have had some influence over national wildfire and water policy and there are hints of a change in energy policy, BUT as Samuel Goldwyn once said, "A verbal promise is not worth the paper it is written on."

         

For the past five years or so, I have been working with school age children to help them do better in school and improve their reading and math.

I started out by volunteering with brighter children at The Harlem Children’s Zone and Brandeis High School in Manhattan. I went on to paid work with foster care kids, No Child Left Behind students and even some private pupils.

My volunteer work went the best. I attribute that to the fact the children were both brighter, more interested and better motivated. The work materials were also quite relevant to their abilities and their school situation. The children were looking to succeed and had sufficient capacity to do so.

Since school work is designed to be challenging, there are many students that find it very difficult. It is easy to become discouraged. It is easier to do nothing than to struggle with uninviting results. One reason behind Supplemental Education Services and No Child Left Behind. Students who keep plugging away should do better in school in the long run.

As for my paid work, it broke down in to three categories: No Child Left Behind Students, Foster Care kids and private students, mostly in home settings. I found younger No Child students more cooperative and more willing to try than older ones, who had acquired their own unique approaches and attitudes to learning situations. Most of the time the prepared educational material that we had was pretty easy to work on. If the allegedly proper grade material was too hard, I went to less difficult work until the student was able to make decent progress.

But there are children who are much below level and not looking for a challenge. If we were not doing what I felt was appropriate academic work, I would resign from that client since not doing relevant school work was a fraudulent use of public money.

I encountered several students who, in essence, were not working with me. One or two had serious personal problems that I was not going to overcome. I do not claim to perform miracles. Another one was failing in school because he was not cooperative. He did not participate in class. He did not do homework. Believe me, there are kids like this in the school system. At the first session, he did not appear to be willing to cooperate with me either so I resigned. I gave up the account.

While I would much prefer to be earning a living as a full time writer, both my students and I will have to survive the school system. Although I had as much difficulty motivating private students as I did with working with some No Child Left behind children, my experience only goes to prove the saying that you have to be in the game to win it. So much for raising education standards.

Last 5 Entries by neillevine

• Tax Cuts Follow The Bouncing Interest Rates - November 3rd, 2008
• Fund Raising, Jobs, The Future Of The Economy - October 24th, 2008
• Term Limits, Debates, Speaker Pelosi Investing - October 17th, 2008
• Economics=Dismal Science. Budget Deficits Balance Of Trade - October 14th, 2008
• Cam Getting Osama Bin Laden Boost Confidence - October 8th, 2008

Related Posts