Preparing to Work With the Children

I have visited the regional high school with more contact cards and brochures and introduced myself to the woman who refers families to tutors in the central office there.

I have made most of the final arrangements to use a space in the village to do tutorial work. There is parking there and a small waiting room for parents. It is a spa, with small rooms for massage and acupuncture treatments. It is run by my friend. (www.sunshinecenter.ca)

My husband, a retired electrician who now does woodworking and cabinet making, will make me a custom sized tutorial table. It will be 30 inches high, which is standard height for desks and tables, 18 inches deep and 40 inches wide. The 40 inches will easily accommodate the child and the child's books, and then me beside the child, always on the right hand side because I am right-handed. e

I have decided that I will teach children to center themselves and check in with their physical body, emotions and mind before starting work on a learning project. For example, before starting to work on her math, a student might check in with her physical body (hungry, tired, achey, thirsty?), her emotions (nervous, anxious, enthusiastic, resentful...) and her mind (distracted, tired...). The idea is to be in alignment with the activity with all parts of the self and to be in integrity, not hiding from ourselves the fact that we are anxious about math, for example. We acknowledge that we are feeling anxious and then make the conscious choice as to whether we will explore that anxiety, its source and its size and feel, etc, or go on doing the math anyway, but consciously. "I'm feeling anxious about math, but I'm choosing to try to do this anyway." The idea is to be in our truth.

Then, always check that you have everything that you need for this work session. And then we begin.

For me, the first lesson or two is about teaching the child a new way of approaching their school work. Generally, school work is done because the teacher says so. I'm proposing that the child take a look at the book, the course in general (at the high school level) and make conscious choices about the learning project. Why am I doing this? What do I hope to gain out of doing this? What is my goal with this project?
The next step is to get to know the tools that are available for learning, and generally, for school children, that means text books. They often have a table of contents, an index, exercises, a glossary, and sometimes selected answers to exercises at the back of the book. These are all excellent tools for teaching one's self.

This is what I propose to begin with when I take my first tutorial session on September 7th. I'm so glad to have a student to work with! The real joy of this project begins in just about 10 days.....