Tutoring as caring

Lessons from the unnoticed

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Playing Dumbledore

(Thesis revamp- continued)

Dumbledore is one of my favorite teachers because of the way he teaches is by allowing his students to make the mistakes on their own first. Afterward, he gives them words of encouragement and reprimands them by taking away house points. If anyone wanted to learn to teach effectively he is one of the top fantasy teachers for us. However, it is strangely noted that he is biased at times against Slytherin. No one can be perfect, right?

Ultimately, a teacher should be someone who is versatile in their own lessons and practical education. Teachers who are too harsh, or hard on us show us that we need to improve. But deliberate bashing due to biases is not a welcoming feeling. So, it is a tricky slope. I figured out how to be a brush over tutor when I was young and in schooling.

I call it a brush over tutoring but the reality is that I was just being a good friend. Dumbledore was always being a good headmaster even if the decisions he made were not always the best for Slytherin.

“My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.” ― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

My first Non-English friend

I will always believe in having a diverse set of friends. If everyone around me was the same, I would have no area to grow. I’d become a puppet designed to be like the rest of the people I surround myself with. We are the sum of the five people we hang around with most is a proverb I hold dear to me. Before I ever heard about such a proverb, I was already working on being distinctly different from the rest of my school mates by engrossing myself in books.

When I was seven and divulging myself in the power of learning English like the rest of my third-grade class, we got a new student. She was a foreign student from China. You would think that at this stage of the game being mean to a classmate about where she came from wouldn’t exist. But it did. Our classmates were about as cruel to her as they were to me. ( Bubblegum in hair and all.)

The reality is that the rest of our class knew she would not understand English perfectly even though she had taken lessons in China. I approached her because I wanted her to try one of my snacks. Curiosity can kill. From then on, we shared snacks and became friends.

When I met her family after six months of being friends, I was pulled into a completely opposite culture. Her family welcomed me with open arms but they had issues with speaking English as they did not take English classes before moving. My eyes were open and accepting of their language. ( I was a child, and I never held a bias against someone based on culture, or language.)

I learned a bit about Chinese cultural traditions. One tradition is that shoes are not allowed past the hallway, only slippers, eating with chopsticks is a norm, always eat more, and never sit down until all of the elders have picked their spot at the table. Looking back at it now, she was part of my adoration for Asian Literature and culture.

The reason she influenced me towards Asian Literature and culture is that we spent a lot of time at her home together, and through this shared time my knowledge of her culture expanded. Rather than immediately dismiss the values of her culture, I choose to try to understand and respect her culture. Her family taught me the basics of Chinese culture and the idea that American society is not the only way of life. Cultures are unique, beautiful, and bring forth a celebration of humanity.

“There is nothing better than a friend unless it is a friend with chocolate.” ― Linda Grayson

Tibet who knew?

During middle school, I met another girl who was a recent foreign student. It was sixth grade and this was the time where I realized how undervalued Asian culture is in America. I realized how focused our schooling is on European structured lessons. Out of respect and due to the fact that I didn’t ask to use her name here…I will call her a flower (Rose).

Rose is from Tibet and she is the only one in her family who could speak clear English. Her home life involved translating a lot of paperwork for her parents and sisters. I initiated our friendship by helping her with homework assignments that she was struggling with. I took the approach to sit down and go through the structure of a sentence with her and it turned out the reason she did not approach the teacher is because she felt out of place, and unnoticed. Not being as equipped with the English language made her have difficult relationships with other students.

Our teacher at the time noticed that she was struggling but would only approach my friend about her difficulties if another student was present. My friend would get nervous and afraid every time she has to go up the teacher with another student. It is a fear we all have had at one point in time. But I determined that she wasn’t getting proper one on one time with the teacher because of her fear. I took it upon myself to help her with writing, grammar mechanics, and reading of the English language.

In exchange, she taught me softly some of the words in her own language. It was my first soft tutor moment. ( I got help with math from her too.)

“We’re all human, aren’t we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Learning never stops

A more recent example of my ability to help people learn English involves my roommate who is from South Korea. My roommate recently took a Public Speaking course because it’s required for the college degree she is aiming for. Overall, it may not be well known to Americans, but Asians take pride in their education which means they dislike asking for help from teachers.

She felt like asking the teacher for help was admitting that she didn’t understand English that well. Through admittance, her pride and self-confidence falls. Her desire to pursue higher education is to help her become stronger in communication with Americans, and climb the ladder into a higher paying position.

Due to this pride, she did not even want to approach me for help. Pride in Asia is a huge cultural mindset and by asking me for help she admitted to herself that she is not good enough to meet educational standards on her own. But when I saw her struggling night after night with English, I decided to offer my help with her studies. The troubles she was having with her course had to do with English Grammar making it difficult to write the speech down for her teacher.

The teacher did offer small efforts to help like allowing her to use note cards to read the speech she wrote rather than memorizing it. This is a significant form of helping her because if she had to memorize every word and detail of the speech she would be too startled to actually say a word in class.

Instead of approaching her with the editing and polishing of the work on my own, and handing her a copy back, I chose to read the speech with her. I asked her questions like what sounded better to her, and what was easier for her to say. By going sentence by sentence to help reconstruct her papers, she was able to grasp certain grammatical rules in English better which improved her writing throughout the semester. In this way, I not only improved her confidence in the subject, but she was soon able to understand the concept of certain grammatical rules. I felt like I had helped someone learn more about themselves and how they learn as an individual, and gained respect from my roommate.

Overall, these soft tutoring moments taught me how to accept cultures and languages that were not my own. I learned how to teach and coach others about their own weaknesses or difficulties.