I became a tutor for children ages 6 to 15.I attended the first get-to-know-you meeting to see my possible match. Like most things, it was too good to be true. The kids were so engaging and fun to be around, but boy was I wrong. A good portion of kids were not interested in learning but at some point as a tutor you need to understand the situation they are in. Sometimes people need to just be there to support and motivate. I remember the first few days my friend and I were paired with the same kid because there were so many tutors but not enough kids and from the start we knew it was going to be a lot of work because our kids’ attention span was really low. We first asked him if he had homework and said no, but the coordinator told us from the start that he gets homework everyday but always says he doesn’t, so we knew he was lying. We then asked him to show us his folder but then ran away . We knew that if we chased him down we were giving him the satisfaction he wants in doing what he says so we just followed him but didn’t run around playing tag.
Since he noticed that we weren’t putting in any effort in trying to play with him he got really upset but we told him that if he got his folder and started doing his homework we would play a quick game of tag for each homework he completed. That was enough convincing for him because he ran to get his homework but since it took him such a long time to get started with his homework there wasn’t enough time for him to play which upset him but it also taught him that the sooner he gets his work done, the more free time he has to play.
