Tutoring at FLOC: A Whole New World

(Wynsome Brown was a FLOC intern and tutor this spring. She attends Howard University.)

On my first day of tutoring, I have to admit I was a bit nervous; I had no idea what to expect. Well, I pretty much knew that I was going to be one-on-one with a student helping them improve their education and learning skills. I wasn’t sure of how the student would respond to me. I questioned my teaching skills, my listening skills, and whether or not I was going to be able to identify where and what the problem areas were and how to fix them.

On my first day, I was a substitute for another tutor. My student was an eight year-old boy named Kevin. I was told beforehand that he was extremely smart and a fast learner, which gave me some relief. But there still was one problem – I was slightly intimidated by the fact that his normal tutor had already developed a certain learning pattern that I wouldn’t be able to mimic. I didn’t want to interrupt his way of learning, or delay his progress.

Once I introduced myself to Kevin, all of my nervousness quickly disappeared. I started to remember why I love being around children. We started off slow but in no time things began to warm up. He was a fast learner and extremely smart for his age. I gave him permission to choose a game. We began to play UNO, and I started to notice that he had his own rules and regulations of the game. I continued to play, and I figured the object of his game was for me not to win. We had a blast! He never wanted to stop, but unfortunately for Kevin, we had to get some reading done. It was fortunate for me though, because I couldn’t take another losing game.

We began to read the Vacation in a Volcano, which Kevin had picked out. We read until it was time to wrap up. I really enjoyed myself and all my worries were completely gone by the end of the session.

The second time I tutored, I was looking forward to meeting my new student and was excited about building a relationship with him or her. Nenis is her name, and she is the sweetest eight year-old girl I’ve ever met. It was her first day, so I could sense a little shyness. We jumped right into learning games and she also displayed a lot of intelligence. As we got more and more into the game, that shyness quickly turned into excitement. She even told me, “That game was fun.” I was glad to see her smile; it just made more excited about our time together.

Tutoring at FLOC has opened my eyes to a whole new world. It has shown me that there are children in the community who really want to learn. I simply love children; they don’t judge, criticize, or intimidate. They are filled with joy and happiness, which goes a long way.

Coloring In the Whole Picture: Intern Impressed by FLOC’s Strategy

(Addie Ludwig is an intern in FLOC’s Recruitment and Outreach Department. She tutored at FLOC over the summer.)

Tutors usually charge anywhere from $20 to $100 an hour, but not at FLOC. Dozens of regular people from all walks of life sit down once a week, one-on-one with a kid and teach for free. Honing in on each child’s individual strengths and weaknesses, they attempt to strengthen fundamental skills and provide a solid foundation for later education. It’s not super specialized, and it’s not hard to train for it. Here they just try to color in all the blank spots so that the kids can see the bigger picture.

I am a proud survivor of the DC Public School system (K-12), and was interested to see people working to help DCPS kids from outside of the boundaries of the schools themselves. I had a mixed bag experience with DCPS, as many have; I attended the prestigious, public Horace Mann Elementary and enjoyed a fantastic, hands-on early education that provided a solid foundation for what would prove to be a slightly spotty education later on.

I got involved with FLOC early last summer partially out of curiosity and partially from a desire to learn how to interact with children, something I don’t have extensive experience with and I’ve never been particularly good at. I feared the worst – being unable to command the attention of a hyper child, confirming my fear that I am terrible with kids. As it turned out, I was placed with an extraordinarily bright and well-behaved girl who came to tutoring excited to learn and receptive to everything I had to say. In the end, it’s safe to say that she ended up helping me.

When I got started at FLOC, I remember being concerned that I would encounter some of the condescension in situations where the disadvantaged are assisted by the (more) privileged. I can gladly say that there is none of that here; everyone genuinely cares about the kids. They’re passionate and work tirelessly in both tutoring and behind the scenes to close the learning gaps that the shortfalls of regular schooling create on a regular basis.

The statistics speak for themselves – the program works. FLOC has formed a highly functional safety net that aims to and regularly succeeds in catching the kids that fall through those cracks that are not few or far in between. And it’s free. What more could you ask for?

FLOC is Highlight of Intern’s College Career

(Holly Friedman is a FLOC intern and attends The George Washington University.  She would like to start a blog thread for GW tutors this year.)

Fifteen-credit course loads, never-ending research projects and community service hours… all while attempting to maintain a social life. It’s not always easy for a full-time college student to also have a challenging internship.

My name is Holly Friedman and I am a junior at The George Washington University where I am majoring in Human Services and minoring in Speech & Hearing Sciences.

While it’s not always easy, my experience as an intern at FLOC has made all the late nights studying and time management challenges well worth the extra effort.  I have always loved working with children, but my experience so far at FLOC has been truly unique.

Although I love my coursework in human services classes, my hands-on experience at FLOC has been the highlight of my junior year, and perhaps my college career thus far.  As an intern, I am a site coordinator for both the Thursday night math tutoring program and the Saturday afternoon reading tutoring program, where I work directly with students and tutors.

My weekly tasks consist of editing lesson plans, working on long-term and short-term projects and lending a hand to staff members in any way I can.

Over the past few years I have toyed with the ideas of being a teacher or a speech-language pathologist, and I currently want to be a social worker.  Until this year, though, I never thought about working at a nonprofit organization, and I didn’t even realize that community-based organizations like FLOC actually existed.

Through my internship experience, I realize that I now see myself potentially working in the nonprofit sector as my career.

FLOC is a combination of all of my professional interests, giving me the opportunity to work with children, teach and help others all at once.  Although it sounds cliché, I encourage all college students to explore, because you may find something that suits all of your interests — just like FLOC suits mine!