Our plan
This is actually my husband's story -- it would never occur to him to tell it. Bert has had a love affair with math and engineering almost his entire life. The problem he has devoted years of exploration and volunteer tutoring to uncover, is why some kids shut down their math skills. In his words, "If some child fails the test on the Civil War, they don't go into the class on World War II and believe that they will fail it as well because they are not good at history." Bert would love for learning to be a life long experience --again in his words, "to have learning be like breathing." This quality of exploring and living life is lost to some degree for people who fail at math. Also, in today's world, math skills are vital. In his tutoring, Bert incorporates the very skills that made him an excellent manager when he was in the software industry, such as the ability to express things in such a way that the person listening comes away from the conversation feeling like they are brilliant.
What we did
When he retired from the computer software industry, Bert devoted between 10 and 15 hours a week to tutoring kids in math one-on-one. He received cooperation from the four teachers (the school only has 90 kids) and has been doing this for the past eight years. He works with both kids who have fallen behind and need someone who can introduce a different way of looking at math, and with kids who were so far ahead of the game that they were shutting down out of boredom. After beginning his tutoring, Bert introduced himself to a group who trains math teachers to be more effective. His work with them began as someone who audited their coursework and provided feedback, but the group loved his insights so much that they quickly provided pay to have him on their team. Through his input, they have structured their programs to have the teachers they work with see what it would be like to teach based on what their students are learning, rather than teaching in order to pass a state-given test.
Our results
All of the students were impacted whether they were aware of it or not. It is a huge gift to have someone fully listen to you and not talk down to you. The kids who were failing caught up. The kids who were excelling discovered new ways to play with math. The teachers gained a rigorous and dependable ally -- Bert is a member of their team/family. When he first began tutoring, Bert gained compassion and space for our (junior high school-aged ) son to be the confusing, oft-times annoying, alternately charming and disgusting typical teenager. Again, in his words the discovery that the kids at North Star "were all just like Brian" transformed their relationship. The staff at the group gained a powerful and dynamic partner. Bert is included when they plan out their semesters, so they can all figure out where he can be the most useful and which kids would benefit the most from his efforts. Bert gained the wisdom to begin two different organizations: foundationforlearning.org and bertspeelpenning.wordpress.com, which is his blog about new ways of looking at math.
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