I started after-school tutoring yesterday for a group of five 4th/5th grade boys.
I went into it kicking and screaming a little because I had such a horrible experience with tutoring last year, but the following reasons made it easier to sign up (there's a lot of pressure to tutor at our school--even on Saturday mornings!):
*It's only once a week since I'm splitting the duties with a colleague.
*All the lessons are already planned and all the materials are already provided.
*It's an extra $50 a week.
*$50 buys a lot of ice cream.
Back to yesterday.
We got to the part in the lesson where we are supposed to review plot elements. The script said:
"The plot is the beginning, middle, and end of a story. Let's turn to our workbooks and write the beginning, middle, and ending of a story that we're all familiar with: Cinderella."
Cue the confusion. Cue the puzzled looks.
"Cinderella!? What's that?"
"Huh?"
"I haven't seen that movie!"
Ooooookay. So I had to stop in the middle of the script to tell the whole story of Cinderella. And I did it with gestures, expression, and all the right voices.
All five of those "macho" boys were completely enthralled! No impulsive behavior. No random fart noises. No distraction. I had them eating out of my hand.
Hmmm.... I may have missed my calling as a professional storyteller!
Not Modern Enough to Use Modern Conveniences
8 months ago
13 comments:
Kudos to you! I knooooow that 4/5th grade boys are hard to engage. Especially at tutoring...you may have just found your second calling, for sure!
Hilarious! I should've guessed that you were tutoring boys when they didn't know who Cinderella is.
Have fun eating your (well deserved) ice cream!
Cinderella is a wonderful story. Did you through in a nice song?
hee hee! cute story... you opened up a whole new world for them. what's all this tutoring on sat mornings stuff? holy cow that just seems wrong!
i applaud your tutoring=ice cream equation!
My favorite part in the Disney movie is the mice singing Cinderella Cinderella. I barely want to poison them at all....
Oh forget the Prince..... Mice that do house work.. Swoon.....
Catching up on your postings! Been giving post-op care to a dear friend and into jury duty on a first-degree murder case. One thing I had to move was my participation in The Pickle Jar Players - a group of us older actors who go to schools and senior homes and read age-appropriate stories for about 40 minutes. Doesn't matter what age, they all love story-telling and teachers thank us for getting some "quiet" time. Hang in there, just a few more months before you can put your feet up.
You know, I don't think my kids have seen that movie, either. Hmmm.
How much fun would it be to work at a library? Well, now that I'm thinking about it, that might only be fun for about a week, but anyway. $50 a week isn't bad at all!
Stranger than fiction!! And by the way, I am in complete agreement with Elissa!!! Love you, Mom
How sad. We all grew up on Cinderella. My friend had the record (remember those?) and we used to spend our Saturday mornings doing kids' stuff like listening to it over and over and laughing our way through as we sang all the songs. We were being kids...not sitting at tutoring.
How the world has changed. Too many choices.
Pity - there are so many lessons to learn from Cinders.
What a great age to teach! I'm currently a 5th grade teacher and I love it. They've never heard of Cinderella? Wow, this push-button, Bieber generation...
BTW, I arrived here via another teacher's sidebar where you were linked. I can't remember which, but I'm here.
Nice! Great job on keeping them enthralled with Cinderella!
I laugh at the gaps in pop culture kids sometimes have. Laugh, and sometime feel very old.
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