laik012's blog

After having had read Lives of the Boundary Mike Rose and Noa’s Arkby David Schwarzer, I began entering the class feeling enthusiastic and of course full of ideas to experiment with my tutee. My goal from this visit was to further extend Mike Rose’s statement regarding human connection. I wanted to gain trust but equally gain respect from my tutee. I started the session by asking if he had any homework. He responded “yes” accompanied by an unwilling spirit. We started the homework with math problems regarding symbols such as < (less than), > (greater than) and = (equal). It occcured to me that it takes a lot of creativity to form something interesting that can gain my tutee’s interest.   In terms of English, we did a few words that required us to fill in the blanks. One of the vocabulary for today was the word “shade”. At first we tried to illustrate the word through drawing tall trees shading people below them. Later, I tried to illustrate this word through some acting techniques. I was trying my best to create a third space between us while reminding myself not to be oppressive but still gain respect. . It was certainly a tiring day but I learned so much more about my tutee and I was so proud of him when it came to reading time. Last session, my tutee was barely interested to get by two books. Today my tutee told me that he wanted to make his parents proud and he read me 5 books.