Darren

Darren's Peer Tutoring Journal

Hello my name's Darren and I am a graduating student at Gleneagle Secondary School. I enjoy skiing, waterskiing, rock climbing, hiking and camping. For nexy year I am hoping to go to school for microbiology or psychiatric nursing. I really dont enjoy having to do pointless assignments like having to write my own biography that no one will ever read. One day I hope to go to Austria for bible college, and this is a picture of where I would be going:



Journal entry number one:

SO far I have been splitting my peer tutoring classes up between two classes, socials three days a week, and Spanish two days a week. While I like having the variety and being able to work with a larger amount of people, not being a part of the class consistantly has been a bit of a struggle, as I find it hard to be fully engaged with the students. I find that I am able to help for the most part, at least in Socials I am well able to answer and explain any questions. In Spanish, I have one to two minute conversations with all of the students in Spanish, and those go very well. I dont know how much they are gaining from that, but I think for the most part its positive. It for sure gives them more oppertunity to practice their oral skills that I know often gets less practiced thanreading or writing, just due to the teachers time. There have been a few days when the students have been writing tests or doing something wehre I cannot help, so in that instance ill usually help the teacher out with photocopying ect. I am glad that Im able to be helpful, but I wonder how helpful im actually being. So far the semester has been fairly positive, and I hope that it will contue to be so.

Entry number two: What I need to do to become a better peer tutor. I think that the main thing I need to do be a better peer tutor is get better at recognizing when kids need help but won't ask for it. I notice that there are a few students who are quiet and always say that they dony need any help, but then I see them doing not as well as they could on a test or assignment. I will have to approach these kids and find a way to interact with them in such a way that I can find out how they are struggling and help them understand it without seeming to batter or be nosy. I notice that my attention is always focused on a few individuals in the class, when there may be more people in the class that also need help. I hope that I will be able to interact with some of the quieter kids in my peer tutoring class. I have had a good few weeks getting to know a few of the kids, and I hope that I will get to know the rest of them in the next few weeks.

Entry number three:

I feel that I have made a fairly good connection with my students over the last few weeks. They seem fairly confident with asking me questions, and with the socials kids weve had more fun casual conversations during off time. However, with the kids in the Spanish class i dont feel as close to, mainly becasue i only see each kid for two or three minuites two times a week. They dont ask very many questions, I just try and help them whenever they are strugling with a sentence or concept in Spanish. However, on the few times that im just wandering around the class when they are reading an article or translating something, they dont ask very many questions. Over the next few weeks I need to work on learning kids names in each class, and getting to know every one better.

Entry number four:

I think that the thing that makes this class the most meaningful to me is when Im able to help anyone of the kids in teh classes I tutor, and hopefully make some kind of impression or difference in their learning careers. Just like teachers, my job isnt just to teach the content of the course, but also to pass on the skills that I have learned throughout the years about learning itself. The learning skills that I can pass on are more importnat than just the course content, and so I hop that I as a peer tutor will get the chance to pass on some of the study and learning skills that I have learned through trial and error throughout the last four years.

Entry number five:

I feel very comfortable when I am speaking spanish with my spanish 10 class. I feel confident mostly because the Spanish I know is way beyond the level that they kow, so I am able to help them with any problem they have. In life, when I find an area that I'm good at like this, I can use my knowledge to help others that maybe don't know as much. In Spanish in aprticular, the ability to communicate with other is definatly a big asset.

Entry number six So the last two weeks have not exactly been the greatest for Peer tutoring for me. Because my Socials class that I am regularly with had a student teacher, I have been sent to a Science 9 class. At first I was excited for this because I like Science, and I remember far more of the science curriculum than I do the socials. However, I have not been warmly received by the students, or the teacher. The teacher insists that I help these two kids that are having trouble. While I really want to help them, they don’t seem to want my help. I have tried to get them to focus on the work that they are doing, but they don’t listen. The teacher doesn’t want me to help any of the other children, which I disagree with, because I hate not being able to help people because I’m supposed to be helping someone that doesn’t want, my help in the first place. The good thing in all of this is that after a week, I was back with my Socials class. Here, I think things are going really well. All the kids are really warming up to me, and I’ve gotten to help probably every single one of them at one point or another. The atmosphere is a lot better, I feel that I’m genuinely wanted and helpful in the class. I also really like how I’m using the skills and info that I learned in Euro History to help the kids in socials 9. It’s interesting how four years later I’m learning the same history, just at a more intense level. It sure makes explaining some of the concepts in their course a lot easier!

Entry number seven: For me, a really good moment that I had in peer tutoring happened last week. There is a kid in the class, Suzie who struggles a bit with socials. Over the semester, I have watched her try and put a lot of effort into her studies, but not do very well on any of the tests of assignments. I have tried to help her several times, but she doesn’t really listen, or just kind of shrugs me off. However, the other day she asked me for help with the assignment she was doing with the French revolution. While I was explaining it to her, she said thanks, and that it finally made sense. I don’t know how much of that was me explaining it to her, but it at least feels good to see her understand something for once. There is just something about it that makes you feel all good and happy inside. I can still see that she’s struggling, but at least she’s talking to me, and willing to get help in some form. I hope that I will be able to help her in the future as well, so that she can have some success in Socials. I also hope that she starts working harder too, because that could be part of the problem. While I feel good that I helped her, I do realize that I can’t do everything, and that she is responsible for her own learning to some extent too. I guess this is something that every peer tutor needs to realize, that peer tutors cant do the work for the kids, we can just help them figure out how to find the answers.

Entry number eight:

I feel that my personal values do reflect in my tutoring to some extent. For anyone who doesn’t know, I’m quite an uptight person, very concerned with getting things right and on time, and hard working. I guess that I do put these things into my tutoring. I see that class as something that I have to do and get right, or I'm a failure. When I'm helping someone, I'll do what it takes to help him or her find the answer, no matter how hard it is for them to get it. The other thing I noticed the other day is that my views on cheating and integrity also seep into my tutoring life. There was a girl that really wanted to skip her Spanish test that she had next block, because she felt she wasn’t ready for it. I wasn’t really sure what to do, because I didn’t want to just tell on her, because she hadn’t done anything yet, and it would have made her resent me for it. I still didn’t think it was a good idea, so I tried talking to her, and telling her how skipping is never a good idea, and how she would most likely get caught in one fashion or another, how it forms bad habits, and how shell get behind. She listened to everything I said, and seemed to agree with me, but in the end I don’t know what choice she made. Although this wasn’t related to socials, I do feel that it was an important tutoring moment, because giving learning skills and tips can often be more useful that just info. In my advice I do see my very rigid, rule abiding self, which in this particular instance may be a good thing. Whatever choice she made, I hope that she at least thought about it, and that she’s able to make the right decisions in the future.

Entry number nine:

Two stars: I think that I am fairly approachable during class. All of the kids have asked me for help at one point or another, and most of them have asked for help multiple to many times. I think that being approachable is a very good trait for peer tutors to have, because students need to feel safe when asking for help. None of the kids have problems taking to me, and I could probably carry on a conversation with each one of them. This rolls into my second star, being more social and interactive with them. I’m a bit more of a shy person, so taking peer tutoring has been a bit of a lesson in putting myself out there with a group of people that I didn’t know, or have an awful lot in common with. However, I feel that I have been able to develop my interactive and friendly skills a bit over the past semester, because before I probably wouldn’t even have know what to say to a grade nine that I had never met before. I think that both of those skills, being approachable and being inte4ractive and friendly will help me far beyond just peer tutoring class. They are skills that I know will be important for whatever job I end up getting, and whatever other things I chose to do with my life. One wish: I think one thing that I really need to work on is patience. I know that I struggle with this, but especially when I’m tutoring, its really important to stick with the students as they are struggling, even if it means going over the concept a hundred times. For me, I tend to just think to myself, I tried", and send them to the teacher for more help. I often wonder if I might have been more useful if I had just stuck with it, and been more patient when the student didn’t understand what I was saying. That being said, I’m not a teacher, and at some point I do have to realize that there are some instances where I may not be the best person to help a student understand something. However, patience is a skill that I need do develop further.

Entry number Ten:

To be honest, I really didn’t know what to expect coming into peer tutoring this semester. I had talked to a few teachers about different placements, and throughout the semester I have been in four different classrooms, with the majority of my time in Socials. I do have to say that I have for sure enjoyed myself though. More that anything else, I’ve enjoyed being with the grade nines, and sore of re-living my time in grade nine with them. Because I’ve already gone through what they are going through, it feels really cool to talk to them, see where they’re at, and remember when I was there. I have had the privilege of talking to many of the students about my experience with what it’s like to drive, graduate, what courses to take, how important high school is, what volunteering is like and so on. By far my favorite parts of this course have been the non course related experiences, when I’ve been able to say " oh yeah, I remember doing that. Here’s what I did, make sure you either do it or don’t do it". I think the being a peer tutor is so much more that just the curriculum, it’s about sharing experiences and things that you’ve learned and had passed on to you. I’ve also really enjoyed growing in myself too. I’ve been able to further a lot of the social skills that I lacked before. I’ve noticed that I have become a more patient, approachable, and overall friendlier person. I know that the experiences I’ve made this semester will carry on with me into my future. After all, being able to help a co-worker or friends is a valuable skill to have; a skill that I hopefully have to some extent by now. It’s been a great semester full of laughs, frustration, learning and lots of connecting with the students. I’m glad I did it, and I feel good about what I’ve accomplished this semester. I’m also pretty exited to be graduating in a week!!!