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Friday, March 26, 2010

Positive pressure

It's easy to enjoy the delicious final product, but getting there takes work. Hard work.

I tutored my NCLB student last night. It didn't go so well. Her math is coming along (albeit, slowly) but nothing else is. And by "nothing else," I mean her language arts: comprehension, vocab, writing, reading fluency, spelling. She's also rather lazy. Her teachers at school assign virtually no homework, which doesn't help at all.

Oh dear. I guess I'm much better at teaching math than at language arts. Need to work on that.

I only have 8.5 hours left with this student. That comes out to about a month, since she only does two session a week. THERE IS SO MUCH LEFT TO WORK ON WITH HER. There is just not enough time to help her get the results necessary to raise her knowledge, her grades, her confidence, and her test scores.

Well, I'm falling back on Mr. B's, my CT during phase 3 take 2, advice: Do what you can, and let go of the stuff that you can't control.

I'm kicking up her sessions to the next level. Much more writing. Much more algebra. Which means more homework for her. She hasn't been doing any of the homework - not since the first assignment. There's no pressure since I don't give her a grade. I CAN give her an incentive though. Would giving her stickers for each completed homework assignment be too juvenile? She's in 8th grade, but maybe she needs a goal like collecting stickers to fill up a "Finished Homework" chart. Some students do.

I also need to give her a little wake-up call lecture. Because no matter how much I do, it'll all be for naught if she doesn't put in the effort.

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