Awakened Devotional: Week One - How I Learned Everything the Hard Way

This is a devotional for teachers based on biblical scripture; however, it is applicable for both non-Christian believers and those without a faith, too. The purpose of the text is to help re-center educators in their profession. As both faith and a calling to educate are the two driving forces behind Tutors by Base, I wanted to share my deeper study of the two...

Introduction: How I Learned Everything the Hard Way
*Though I strongly encourage proofreading, devotional responses are not edited; they are entirely unfiltered thoughts on the intersection of faith and education. Please keep your grammarian-esque thoughts to yourself. Thanks! :) *

Application Questions

“We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then given encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.” (Rom 12:6-8)

1.  What is your teaching testimony? How has God grown you and taught you through your work?

Like the author Angela, I was a frustrated brand new teacher. Straight out of college, I was quickly bogged down by administrivia, nonsense that got in the way of my daily purpose—helping the students in my classes. I, too, found that the judgmental part of my nature reared its ugly head far too often; I was mad that parents were not only disinterested in the education of their children, but also that they would have the gall (!) to call me on a regular basis and request that their child not have homework because they had family activities that weekend. I was mad because I, too, would have liked time for family activities each weekend, but instead I spent my time grading and lesson planning. Despite only teaching for 6 hours a day, 5 days per week, my actual workweek ran closer to 80 hours. I wanted to inspire in my students a love of learning. By the time I had reached these 10^th and 11^th grade students, the majority of whom were described as “struggling” or “below standards,” they had readily dismissed school as an impotent institution in which they were incarcerated for 7 or so hours per day. So many had confidence issues, depression…I had students who were “cutters,” addicts, in and out of juvenile detention centers. I had one student arrested in my classroom (and several more outside of it), one student throw a desk and hurl profanities at me because he didn’t like his seating assignment (he was arrested later that day for selling drugs on campus), and another sweet, 16-year-old girl run away to another state to get married—she wanted her new husband to be able to sign her out of school for the day at any time she wished.

Heck, I should have known better than to go into the classroom. My poor mom was subjected to regular awkward conversations with my teachers on how I “didn’t seem to want to be there” during their classes. I was bored. By high school, the awkward conversations stopped; I had found new ways to entertain myself until the bell rang for freedom each day. I won’t recount my high school days here, though.

Though I love to teach, and have felt a strong calling to inspire and help others gain confidence in their academics—my first “pupil” was a fellow second grader who didn’t understand the word problems; the teacher soon assigned me to “tutor” several other students in the same—I had zero interest in the politics of local school districts (we won’t talk about my first encounter with the teacher’s union here either…) and the shenanigans of school policies and classroom management.  I just want to help students, and it took a lot of prayer to realize that the classroom simply wasn’t the way for me to reach my goal.

Man, that teaching testimony was a lot longer than I had intended it to be!  

As for how God has grown me and taught me through my work, He has taught me that what students truly desire is for an authority figure with whom they have developed a close working relationship to have faith in them. God has given me the skills to understand my student’s academic struggles, and he’s grown my ability to have the patience and empathy that I need to show them I believe that they can succeed in their goals. More so, he’s taught me that grades are not the end goal; learning is, and I’m still learning how to fully impart that to students caught in the quagmire of an education system that fails to accurately measure the intelligence of all learning styles.

Phew. So much for getting this done before the baby wakes up…

22. What are the unique abilities God has given to you which help you do your job well? How is God using your gifts and talents in your work as an educator?

I strongly believe that God has given me the following gifts to help others:

·         Understand – I have an ability to discern how people understand; this is definitely a “fruit of the Spirit,” as it’s something I’ve been able to do from a very early age.

·         Encouraging

·         Supportive

·         A caring spirit – I feel a love that exists that is far greater than myself; it makes me want to serve as a channel for good, helping others to reach their potential.

3. 3. What has God shown you about your purpose in education? Are there are particular areas in which you known He wants to use you to bless others or to make school a better place for kids?

I believe that if we’re listening, God opens doors in ways that He wants to lead us. At other times, I’ve felt called to help individual students in certain challenges in their lives; I have several students in mind whom I believe were the sole reason I was a tutor in a certain location for that period. For the last few years, I’ve increasingly believe that my purpose in education has been to encourage others who feel called to educate to pursue their passion; the classroom isn’t the only place to be an educator, and I believe it’s my purpose to help share that with those who wish to teach, but who don’t wish for the forum of a classroom. I can see how God placed certain jobs in my earlier career to help prepare me for this. Though I merely wanted to encourage others to tutor, He provided me with the toolkit to help others learn how to tutor and to do it well. In whatever I do, it should be for the greater glory of God, and so my purpose is to provide 1) the best possible training for my tutors—a BIG work in progress this month!!, and 2) help each tutor find students to work with so they can put that training into practice.

“To Do” Challenge

Make a chart of what I’m good at and what tasks are harder for me to enjoy, and then pray over the tasks.

Aspects of education that I’m naturally good at…	Tasks that are either harder or harder for me to enjoy…
Understanding student’s needs	Responding to email
Talking through concerns	Creating curriculum from scratch
Academic coaching	Lecturing
Socratic-style tutoring	Presentations
Making uninspired curriculum more engaging	Keeping a clean, organized workspace
Engaging students in 1-on-1 learning	Keeping a work-life balance

Photo Source: www.dollarphotoclub.com/stock-photo/Devotional Letterpress/69553732

The Parasitic Leech in the Marriage?

Let's digress a little from tutoring for today...

Given the pervasive use of the word “dependent” within the military community, it’s no wonder the oversized playground bullies of our community have turned the word into DEPENDAPOTAMUS, the rotund, animalized version of a military spouse. Y’know, the one who sits at home waiting for payday so she can head to the mall and spend all her man’s money?! Heyyyy!

Words have meaning.

I make a point of correcting every offending user of the word “dependent,” by ‘gently’ affirming “spouse” in response. I ain't nobody's "dependent." After 7 years, it’s second nature now; “spouse,” an affirmation of the one word question “dependent?” simply rolls off the tongue. The response is terse in the same way I'd respond “I did well” to a small child (and my sister) who tells me how “good” he did at something. I expect the eye-rolling. Whatever.

I'd sooner describe myself as independent--I've worked since I was 14, I put myself through college, and I can damn sure take care of myself, but independent isn't quite accurate either. I don't want it to be how I describe myself; at 30, I think I've matured past my Ms. Independent days. In a way, I have grown to develop a dependence on both my husband and the sisterhood of military spouses, my friends; I see this as a positive. But that doesn't make me a dependent.

Again, words have meaning.

For all intents and purposes, the DoD has given their own meaning to the word “dependent.” They’ve lumped all military spouses under that odious term along with their children and any other of the service member’s beneficiaries.

But their use of the word is inaccurate. They've stripped "dependent" of its meaning. 

Dependent is a loaded term. Though the admin clerk at the MTF or the receptionist at the CDC may not realize it, they’re asking if I am the inferior partner in my marriage—the parasitic leech partner, that is. They’re asking if I rely solely on my husband for financial support, for health care benefits; the simple question implies that I am a ward of my husband akin to a child, for in the eyes of the DoD, a child falls under the same category of personnel—dependent; my child and I are one and the same. I might believe that the sun shines out of my 4-month-old’s caboose, but that little wriggling ball of sunshine and I have vastly different capacities for independence.

Well, that’s unless I sign him up for some baby modeling gigs; he’d definitely out-earn me then. Anyone need a ridiculously cute 4-month-old for a campaign?

Words have meaning, and the choice of the word "dependent" subliminally (if not directly) influences other members of our community to perceive us as such. It draws out the weaker, judgmental side of our nature. That woman in the commissary with her messy hair, yoga pants, and bedraggled kids? Her image has probably been blasted all over Instagram or Facebook under #Dependa, the root of the very word that the military community perpetuates. Her husband may be deployed, she may have just come from the hospital, or maybe she's just really damn tired because she's working all the time and doesn't see a need to curl her eyelashes and her hair just to please your delicate sensibilities. Don't you have anything better to do, #Dependa stalkers?

Who you callin' blood sucker?

What the hell?

We’re dependent because we receive family healthcare as an employer benefit? Are spouses in civilian marriages ascribed the same derogatory term? We wouldn’t deign to relegate the spouse of the member of Congress as a “dependent” simply because she receives healthcare as part of her spouse’s employment compensation package. Was Laura Bush a “dependent” when W. was president because she received employer-provided housing? What about Michelle?

I personally don’t know any military spouses whom I would call dependent. I can list dozens of empowered military spouse women—and a few men—who are successful not only despite the obstacles that the uncertainties of military life throw in their way but BECAUSE of the obstacles; the challenges made them stronger. ‘Nuff said.

Dependency isn't entirely a bad thing though.

We’re just not dependent in the way that the DoD defines us. Dependent also means that we rely on others for support that goes beyond financial need; we rely on others for emotional support. As military spouses, we’re stripped of our traditional social support networks; we don’t live near the people we grew up with, our family, our friends. We don’t step directly into a new support when we PCS to a new installation; the service member in the relationship does when he (or she) walks into his new unit. He has a squadron, office mates, and built in support. We have…an FRG? Blech! Military spouses depend on other military spouses as their battle buddies during deployments, TDYs, and whatever other erratic military schedule keeps their partner away from home. And, yes, we depend on our spouse—the service member—for emotional support and friendship. Our dependence brings us together.

So cut the crap with the the dependent, dependa, dependapotamus nonsense. 

The last thing I want my son to grow up hearing though is that his mother is a “dependent” because she--and her military spouse friends--are anything but. 

Photo Source: www.dollarphotoclub.com/stock-photo/Cartoon mosquito lying and drinking blood/37373492

3 Ways Gamification Helps Students Learn

Coined in 2003, “gamification” has actually existed for well over 100 years, beginning with the creation of customer loyalty stamps. The stamps are still in use today; they keep Charlie incentivized to continue returning to the same frozen yogurt shop each week. Though gamification sounds like yet another piece of educational jargon; the idea behind it is simply to motivate students to learn new material through incentivized fun.

Understood today as program or app based education, gamification doesn’t actually require any fancy technology. Have you ever used Scrabble to teach your child spelling, or how about Monopoly (not the credit card version…) to teach basic math and investing skills? That’s gamification.

Consistently, research shows that students who engage in game-based learning:

1.         Have higher grades
2.          Are more motivated to voluntarily engage in learning
3.          Have higher retention of learned material

Here’s how gamification works:

• It provides rewards for engaging in learning
• The rewards create motivation for continued learning
•  The multi-faceted learning style approach (visual, audio, kinesthetic) helps create stronger engagement, which thus bolsters the reward motivation for continued play
•  The continued learning helps achieve mastery of a skill

To keep up with more trends in education, follow our Pinterest board on Educational Trends!

4 Steps to Helping Your Student Brainstorm an Essay

I’m sure you all remember the class wide essay planning session where you teacher stood at the front of the classroom, chalk (or SmartBoard pen…we’ve a wide range of tutor ages!) in hand, drawing circles all across the board to create a literal web of ideas. Teachers referred to these planning sessions as webbing, mind mapping, or brainstorming. Though the origins of the spiderous-looking graphic organizers remain disputed, the group planning sessions found across the US from boardrooms to classrooms are generally attributed to an advertising executive in the 1940s. This gentleman sought to “storm” ideas with his group.

Boardrooms across the US wholeheartedly embraced the idea. Why wouldn’t they? Think about your own group projects from school—one or two people generally complete 80-percent of the assignment; the remaining members aren’t necessarily just along for the ride, but they’re happy to contribute according to the systems and processes that the more ambitious group members create. In the boardroom situation, the one or two members who generally contributed most of the ideas likely saw brainstorming as a means of motivating the rest of the group to contribute. Those couple of members still produced about 80-percent of the ideas.

Your student is a product of these boardroom experiments gone awry.

When he asks you for help brainstorming an essay, it isn’t that he hasn’t been exposed to a vast array of graphic organizers. He needs help creating the system and process in which he can begin to storm those ideas for himself. There is no magic app or graphic organizer that will do the thinking for your student. He needs your help to learn a simple, easy-to-replicate system that will allow him to generate ideas for when you’re not around to help him. 

If you can help your student implement this simple process, then he can achieve the confidence he needs to have success in his writing endeavors:

1)      Create a mindmap (web or whatever you’d like to call it) with the topic circled big and bold in the center of the page. Draw spokes (or you could call them sunrays, however you’re so inclined) radiating out from the topic. Provide your student with a certain number of spokes. This part is important. Research shows that students will achieve 75-percent more ideas when given a number of ideas to aim for.

2)      Leave the student to brainstorm independently. As Picasso famously explained, “Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.” The student is then free to explore his own thought association. That’s all a mindmap is anyway; it just helps students sort through the filing cabinets of their brain for more ideas!

3)      Once the student has a map of ideas, then you can ask questions about each of the spokes to help the student develop more ideas. If needed, provide the student with more time to brainstorm. Don’t rush this process (unless you’re practicing for a test essay, but that’s a completely different process!).

4)      When you’re both happy with the number of ideas generated, then help the student select a graphic organizer that best fits the planning model for his particular essay. You can either draw one from your own repertoire, or you can find a selection of graphic organizers on our Pinterest page, ranging from planning a persuasive piece to a narrative piece of writing.

Implementing this practice will take time. The student needs how to approach creating ideas for future essays by learning from your modeled approach. With your guidance and positive reinforcement, he will eventually initiate the steps himself.

Should I Charge for a Cancelled Tutoring Lesson?

Examples and reasons why you need a lesson cancellation policy.

I recently missed a dentist appointment.  How did I remember I missed it?  Well, I received an invoice for $50 in the mail about one month after said cleaning should have occurred, reminding me that I scheduled said appointment in a calendar I never use.  Fail.  Now, I highly doubt that my dentist took it personally when I simply didn't show up that morning, and I didn't take it personally when I received a $50 charge for wasting an appointment time that another client could have used in my place. I assume that the $50 no-show fee was somewhere in some fine print I never actually read, but even if it wasn't, a no-show fee seems fair considering the error was entirely mine.  I don't want to receive another fee for my own frivolous oversight, though, so I'm going to make sure this doesn't happen again!

Similarly, if I fail to show up for a doctor's appointment, a spa treatment, or any other service appointment that I don't cancel in sufficient time to provide another client the opportunity to have my time slot, I would expect a cancellation fee.  Using some very basic deductive reasoning (I'm only on my first cup of coffee, so bear with me), it seems logical that tutors should also have a lesson cancellation policy.  Just a thought.

Previously, we looked at instances of why students cancel tutoring lessons, and why you shouldn't take it personally. Thought not quite the bane of tutoring, one too many can affect your scheduling, the respect the parent or client has for your schedule, and your income potential.   Therefore, it is important to have a Lesson Cancellation Policy.

Let's look at an example of what a Lesson Cancellation Policy might look like:
1) Lessons Cancelled within 4 Hours: Full-price of scheduled lesson
2) Lessons Cancelled within 24-20 Hours: Half-price of scheduled lesson

Make these policies clear to your clients by including them in correspondence when setting up initial appointments, or post them with your tutoring rates when advertising your services.

Everyone deserves a second chance, though.  It bodes good will to not charge for a first cancelled lesson, as sometimes life just happens, and everyone deserves a second chance; however, it is incumbent upon you to send an email saying that you’re sorry Sally was not feeling well (or whatever the reason for the cancellation), restate the lesson cancellation rates, and then explain that you will not charge for this as it is a first cancellation, and you (the ever-understanding and patient tutor) look forward to seeing Sally in her next lesson. Knowing that you kindly chose not to charge for a first missed lesson should prevent a repeat offender from striking; however, if it does happen again, then you have plainly explained your policy, and the client will expect a charge.

Should you not charge, then what is to prevent the repeat offender from scheduling you for multiple sessions, all of which he may choose to cancel at any time?  If it still bothers you to charge for cancelled lessons, then consider this alternative: Had the student not booked the lesson with you in the first place, you could have scheduled that time for another student who did both need and want your tutoring assistance that day; therefore, the cancelled lesson represents time where you could have assisted a student in need. 

Maybe I should send this post to my dentist to ask for a second chance, too...

What Should I Write in My Tutoring Lesson Notes?

Hmmm...What should I write about our lesson today?
 

Sometimes it can be challenging to think of what to write in your lesson notes after meeting with a student.  While you may think that it bodes good will with a parent to send a note with each lesson saying something to the effect of, "Janie did awesome today!  She's super-duper!  She's going to do GREAT this year!!!" please recall that your clients are not daft and (most likely) they do not appreciate either disingenuous or patronizing notes from their student's tutor. 

Instead of having to think up a novel way to write about how hard Janie did or did not work during your tutoring session, it is more productive to write about what Janie worked on and how she achieved in that specific task.  A good item to include in notes to parents regarding lessons is an “At Home Assignment” section where parents can quickly review a list of items with which they, too, can follow-up with their student.  This list can also serve as a copy-and-paste tool for beginning your next set of lesson notes.  For example, if you wrote this section at the end of your lesson record:

Janie’s At Home Assignments:
1) Complete essay using all 10 new vocabulary terms
2) Cursive letter K - finish 2 pgs.
3) Study prefix (1) and root words (5) for quiz on Tuesday!
4) Read to page 50 of book for English class

Then, for your next lesson with the student, you may wish to begin your lesson notes as such:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Review of Janie’s At Home Assignments:

1) Complete essay using all 10 new vocabulary terms—Janie did a wonderful job incorporating 7 of the 10 vocabulary words into a well-crafted, 5-paragraph essay, successfully using the transitions and topic sentence skills we have been working on for the past few months.  Janie found the remaining 3 vocabulary words more challenging, so we focused on those words until Janie was able to master each word and integrate it into her essay.  We learned 5 new vocabulary words today.
 
2) Cursive letter K - finish 2 pgs—Janie is working well towards her goal of learning to write in cursive script.  She wrote very elegant letters for today, and only had to rewrite 3 letters out of 2 entire pages! We began letter L, both upper and lower case, today.

3) Study prefix (1) and root words (5) for quiz in next lesson! –Janie studied her introduced to prefixes and root words from our last lesson, learning how they can help her better improve her understanding of vocabulary.  She successfully identified the correct meanings of the prefix and all of the root words on her quiz.  We learned 2 new prefixes and 3 new root words today.

4) Read to page 50 of book for English class—Janie explained that she was quite busy this week, so she did not have an opportunity to work on this assignment.  It is important that she complete this reading for her English class, so I encouraged her to read 10 pages before bed each night to help make sure she has completed the book in time to write her book report at the end of the month.

Janie’s At Home Assignments:
1) Study 5 new vocabulary words for spelling and definition quiz in next lesson!
2) Cursive letter L - finish 2 pgs.
3) Study prefix (2) and root words (3) for quiz in next lesson!
4) Read 10 pages of English book per night.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note that the format is pretty simple, consistent, and easy to implement if the student has a regular enrichment lesson plan for which you design lessons.  This format is a little trickier for students who have irregular tutoring sessions or who require homework help in a variety of subjects.

Writing these lesson notes takes approximately 10 minutes, so again, it is important to integrate administrative time into your hourly rate; otherwise, you will end up  resenting the amount of time that it takes to complete good lesson notes.  If you end up resenting the time spent, then you could end up resenting the client...just not a good combination.  Set your rates accordingly!