This year the National Honor's Society has provided a one-on-one tutorials with the lower school kids who are in need of help with their studies. We started on January 20 from 3-4pm in the library. This is going to be held every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and so the NHS members, with other volunteers who are willing to help out, would show up on one of these days. I normally went on Mondays and Fridays to teach the kids. We first had two to three kids and then the numbers grew to six or sometimes even more.
My first day doing tutorials was with Kenzel and she was really obedient that I didnt have much trouble managing her. The first day went smoothly as only two kids were there. Me and Don handled the first day, teaching math. Though the lessons were for lower school standards there were some questions that even I had troubled with. The multiplication section got me embarrassed as they had to solve it by hand and the kid got the answer wrong so I also tried to solve it to show her where she got it wrong. But I couldnt get it right for two to three times, this really embarassed me to myself and to the children. Fortunately, I was able to find out where the problem was and so I felt relieved and contented. On this day, the children focused on mathematics. They stayed with us in the library for an hour and a half. They actually worked really hard and I also got to befriend them. Overall, my first day teaching with them was really memorable as I got to review the material and learn new aspects that I didnt discover before.
After several days teaching these children, I realized how much work they had to do for the day. Though they are still very young, they have a lot of homework for almost every subject and this is seen clearly in their assignment notebooks. Some of their homeworks were even actually demanding. Due to this, there was even a time wherein one of the kids seemed to rely on us to do their homework. This made me consider the ethical implications of my actions as I needed to restrict and control myself in guiding them to the answer. Since we are tutoring them for this school year, if they depend and rely on us later on they would not be able to do it by themselves. They may get lazy and not do their homework if we just help them with everything. Thus, I believe that they should try to do it by themselves first and if they have a question they would then ask that time. Some kids, however, doesnt seem to need any help. Some already got to know how to be independent of their studies. Seeing these kinds of children made me to reflect on myself when I was their age. Before, I would remember being lazy and continuously seeking for assistance with my homeworks. Due to this, sometimes even now I would have a hard time doing my works. Hence, I believe that getting to learn how to do one's own homework independently even though its not all correct, would be a big benefit in the long run. But of course seeking for help at a young age is also beneficial as they can know where their mistakes are and where to improve in.
Overall, through this activity, I was able to get along with the lower school kids and they seemed to like me as well. I also got to realize how hard working they are and how they are interested to learn new things. I also believe that my teaching skills has improved and have gained new knowledge through them. I was able to learn how to be patient with them as well. Having been teaching them for already more than a month, I also got to realize how difficult it is to be a teacher. When one doesnt understand for the first explanation, having to repeat the steps and guide them is not so easy than I thought it was. Once again, through this activity I was able to respect my teachers' strength in always trying to help us and give us more advice.
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