Noel’s story proves that our consistent engagement with the youth on our caseload helps build relationships and connection to learning. I am sure we can all relate to the resistance to learn experienced from our youth at the beginning of our service term. Now that you are about halfway through, hopefully you all are experiencing the growth of these relationships as well as the everyday challenges with the youth we serve.
I am really amazed that there is so much more to the lives of the students I am tutoring. I know so little about them, really. I am blown away that even though I know very little about the challenges in their daily lives, what I do see is their willingness to take on the challenge of conquering MATH skills.
I have been in my position for 2 weeks. Right away I had some resistance to the offer of help. As I listened to the young man, I learned that he didn’t want me to help him because it labeled him as someone that was less skilled than other people in his class. So I asked myself, “How can I engage this kid?” and I told myself “Don’t give up. You are not doing anything wrong.” He also asked how long do I have to keep meeting with you? I told him at least thirty times. He seems to be more comfortable, because I am getting less resistance. I have him at the board with the dry erase marker a lot writing out the problems. I also asked him to come up with a problem for the others to solve. He tried to make it really hard! Then I asked him to solve it himself. He was really close to getting the answer right.
I am truly honored to be challenged by my caseload. My brain feels turned on and I can feel it getting a workout!
– Noel Larson, True North AmeriCorps member at Congdon KEY Zone