Since 1997, I've been a volunteer tutor in math and physics at Cambridge Rindge & Latin High School with
Cambridge School Volunteers , and for nine years, also an advisor to the Science Olympiad
team.
The tutoring consist of an hour twice a week after school, at the high school Tutoring Center.
The students have to decide for themselves that want some help, rather than being placed there unwillingly by parents or teachers.
This means that they've already crossed that first level of motivation in signing up.
They are then matched to a tutor for regularly-scheduled sessions, usually twice a week.
That's not to say that all are equally conscientious.
No-shows are a common complaint among the tutors.
But the rewards far exceed the annoyance of occasional no-shows.
And if an assigned student doesn't come, there's often the chance to work with a walk-in instead.
The main virtues in tutoring are not only knowledge of the material, but also high degrees of flexibility and patience.
The tutor must be able to sense when a particular approach in solving a problem isn't working, and has to be able to quickly try other ones.
It's also important to have the student do as much of the work as possible, with guidance, rather than doing problems for him or her.
Student abilities and background will vary greatly.
Some are recent immigrants who might not understand the wording of certain problems rather than the concepts.
Preparation is sometimes poor - I've had students in algebra that didn't know what 6 time 6 was without a calculator.
They will often try to work too fast or will guess at answers; the rising inflection at the end of their response usually prompts a "are you asking or telling?" from me.
My objective will always be understanding and reasoning, assuming or hoping that some will sink in, even by a kind of osmosis.
When possible, I will also tell them why the problems and concepts on which they're working are important, and how they apply to real life.
On the other hand, there are times that I'll admit to them that they'll never see a particular kind of problem again (such as, say, synthetic division).
The reward comes in trying one's best to help, and in seeing a student be able do do or understand something that he or she did not before.
There's also appreciative feedback from the dedicated staff that runs the Tutoring Center.
Then, to my great surprise, on May 7, 2003, I became a recipient of a Mack I. Davis II award for "extraordinary service to the Cambridge Public Schools" (more at the
Harvard Gazette
site).
Having attended previous receptions where this award was presented, this was a great honor, and so I am very proud of it.
About the only negative in the whole experience is the parking situation around the school.
The People's Republic of Cambridge has lots of "Resident Parking Only" and only a limited amount of metered parking, of which only a fraction has 2-hour instead of 1-hour meters.
Because the tutoring session is one hour long, I have to search out one of the 2-hour spaces.
My entreaties that tutors get some help with the parking situation have drawn sympathetic ears, but no action.
The incarnations of "lovely Rita" in Cambridge are also very agressive ticketers.
Once I stayed longer than the tutoring hour with students that were making some progress, only to find that by returning to the car two minutes too late I already had a ticket.
An appeal to the Parking Clerk citing extenuating circumstances was rejected, and a letter to the mayor did not yield any response (
see letter
).