He Asked For Help! He Knows the Difference!
He’ll Catch On! She’s Lazy! She’s Not Working up to Her Potential!
As I clicked the button to admit “Eddy”, my next student, to our Zoom tutoring session, I was surprised to find his mom looking at me with a bit of a worried look.
With barely a hello she burst out, “Mrs. Jones, I have to talk to you before you begin tutoring Eddy. He’s very worried about this coming on-line school year. I have to tell you what he said yesterday.
“In the middle of the day he came to me with a worried look, ‘Mom, I only want Mrs. Jones to tutor me. She’s not like my other teachers. She doesn’t think I’m dumb or lazy. She understands me. She knows I’m working so hard. She knows I truly want to learn!
‘She gives me time to think. She lets me read things over and over again until I read smoothly and until I understand what I’m reading.
‘Mom, she must have enough time to teach me more than 2 hours a week, since I won’t be going to school. I really need her help!’”
Mom then shared her own feelings, “You really do understand him. We trust that you will teach him what he needs to learn in a way that he can learn. I don’t want to monopolize your time, but do you have any extra openings this fall?”
My reason for sharing Eddy’s and his mom’s worries about the upcoming school year are twofold.
First, Eddy is profoundly dyslexic and even though he is hard-working and very smart (dyslexic people are usually bright to gifted), during his short life he has often felt there was something wrong with him. Even in pre-school and Kindergarten, he observed and discerned that others were learning more quickly than he and with such apparent ease. He began to understand the longer amount of time it took him to read words and sentences wasn’t the “norm”—wasn’t like his friends.
He judged himself and felt the judgement of other students and teachers. Maybe they called him lazy, maybe they said he just wasn’t working up to his potential. Whatever the words or thoughts were, they hurt. His self-esteem, his believe in himself suffered.
As parents and teachers, it’s very important for us to understand as much as we can understand the difficulties our children may be facing.
It’s important for us to be uplifting and positive in both our thoughts and our words, because even if we don’t say, “You’re just being lazy!” out loud, they can feel it if we are thinking it.
I want to encourage all of us as educators—whether parents, home educators or in school educators to strive to understand our students, and if we feel a student isn’t “trying” or “isn’t working up to their potential”, to stop and learn more about that student by assessing more deeply and by just talking to them to learn what may be going on.
After thanking Eddy’s Mom for their trust in me and her kind words, I told her that I could offer one extra hour at this time. (Eddy is already tutoring with me two hours/week.) I further explained that when I have more available time, I’ll let her know.
We need more Silent Elephant “e” tutors.
If you are questioning whether Silent Elephant “e” is the comprehensive reading, writing and spelling program you’d like to purchase, feel free to contact us.