What I've been doing the past two months

Several weeks ago I became a full time tutor. I started out as a part-time tutor/nanny, but that was too hard adjusting to the various times and days scheduled with the parent. It wasn't working out and so we went to it being a full time job. The child is a fifth grader and is in a gifted school that is taught half the day in Spanish. (Insert wide eyed emoji) Last year her Math and Science was taught in Spanish. This year it is Language Arts and Spanish. I do not speak Spanish, so to say it has been a rocky road is putting it mildly.

Every week the teachers send out the weekly homework assignment online. I print it out and try to plan for the week accordingly. This week, for example, is very different due to state testing and a surgery the child is scheduled for in the middle of the week. I've had to devise a plan to get work done in a timely manner working around obstacles such as guitar lessons and taekwondo. I also have to remember that I have a daughter who still needs dinner and whatever attention and help that may crop up in her life.

Darcy: "I don't like you having another kid."

I always helped my children with homework; probably too much. Show me a parent who doesn't push a child out of the way to better straighten out letters on a poster board, and I'll show you a parent who is less anxious than me. I've never met that parent. I've watched kids carry into school homework projects that could earn big contracts in the work place. I've seen student's dioramas that could win national art awards (cough..Jaimee...cough). I've viewed children's science projects, short stories, videos, and power points that have moved on to the state capitol in competitions, and yes, I'm guilty. I, of course, blame the teachers who in back in kindergarten graded on a high scale that made me feel I needed to do the cutting out of letters and pictures because my kids' fingers weren't able to handle that kind of pressure!

Once my kids hit high school the work became too hard for me. The only thing I was capable of doing was proofing papers and helping them study for tests from a study sheet. For the most part I haven't worked much on school work in the last three years so starting back up in elementary school was a challenge. My areas of expertise are Language Arts and Social Studies. I am not a Math or Science person. Throwing in Spanish on top of it all? Why not? Thank god for the Internet. When the assignments come I translate them using the computer and when the translation doesn't make a lick of sense I call Madison. So far it has worked fairly well.

My student, of course, finds my lack of skills hilarious. She has taken to teaching me Math using odd little codes like "King Henry Doesn't Usually Drink Chocolate Milk" and writing out conversion charts. Little does she know that my ignorance is forcing her to teach me which in turn teaches her.. Sometimes being dumb has its advantages. I, in turn, have been catching up on math skills I never truly had lost long ago such as multiplying fractions, something not desperately used in the SAHM world. Of course, new math is very different from my "old math" yet the two of us have merged the two together quite nicely into something that works for both of us.

Science has been a tad easier. The Internet helps me immensely with that one. So far we have studied the cells of animals, the weather, and we are currently working on the phases of the moon. Her weather project had us building various weather devices which sat in my backyard for two weeks while we monitored them. Unfortunately, for us the Florida weather did nothing the two weeks we observed except blow wind in different directions.

The one thing I have noticed is that the projects assigned are still as nonsensical as they were when my children were in elementary school. (Hello Mr. D.'s bug project) For this weather assignment we needed a "brick with holes". The child and I went outside and walked around my entire yard. We found 956 bricks and none of them, NONE OF THEM, had holes in them. I finally went next door to the construction worker, who I've gotten to know instead of the new neighbor whom I've never seen, and asked him if he had a holey brick. He did not, but later he knocked on my door with half of a brick with a hole in it. SCORE! We took it, and it made the cut.

The main thing that I've worked on is time management. That is this student's downfall. That and the fact that frankly it is all too boring and time consuming, and yes, sometimes I have to agree with that. In Language Arts she watches Spanish videos that can either be soap operas that elementary kids probably shouldn't be watching or cartoons where adult characters are beating the crap out of each other. From these video, she is to chose five words she doesn't know and give the definition. While I'm okay with that, the writing of the synopsis is done via copying and pasting from the translation site on the computer, and since a requirement is to highlight the periods I'm thinking the teacher just counts the yellow dots to make sure the required number of sentences is done instead of grading the content.

My little charge is smart. Her Spanish is incredible. I'm sure she can speak Spanish in circles around my two girls who have been taking it since they were three years old. She enjoys learning and is very much like Madison in that she retains all knowledge, soaking it up like a sponge. The problem is that she finds all of the homework to be ridiculous, and I can't really argue. A lot of it is busy work, and while I'm sure it benefits, I'm also sure it puts kids off of learning. Time management is necessary, and I keep reminding her that this shit only gets harder as she ages and moves through the grades. We are slowly getting into a routine and she is slowly bringing her grades back to where they should have been from the beginning of the year.

The whole process has given me a renewed sense of neediness. It has given her a structured learning environment and a refuge from her brother who doesn't get home from middle school until after five and is always cranky. (After 5! Crazy) Together we are working on the future...hers and mine.