After a nice long break you have had a few weeks to get back into the swing of things. You as tutors make such a difference in the lives of the students that you work with both academically and socially. These kids really look up to you as a role model in their life. With that in mind please respond to the following prompts.
1) What is/should be the importance of a role model in a child’s life and how have you embraced this role?
2) What improvements have you seen in your student since the beginning of the school year? This can be both academically and socially.
3) What are some of your goals as a tutor to help your student to continue to improve in and out of the classroom? How will you accomplish these goals?
MSU America Reads*America Counts 
Children often behave according to those behaviors learnt from a role model. A role model has a very important responsibility to show the child what is right and wrong. By acting in a mature and respectful manner and looking at school as a positive experience you can teach a child a lot. I make sure to always be kind to others and be very polite as a role model. I do not say negative things about my schoolwork because I want them to enjoy school and progress in their pursuit of knowledge. The students I tutored were very smart and kind in the beginning of the school year and now. They are just more confident in their work and need a little less guidance in problems that needed much more attention before.My goals as a tutor are to always show up with a good mood, be prepared, and to help the student with their own academic goals. I will make sure to get enough sleep, plan things ahead of time, and just be an overall friendly person.
1) When I think about role models in my life I think of intelligent, kind, and caring people. Every time I work with my students I try to be kind and caring and understand them. Sometimes it is hard to put yourself in a middle school girl (or boy’s) shoes but if you can it definitely helps you help them. Some people believe that a role model is only there to build you up, but I disagree, some of my biggest role models have been my harshest critics. I keep this in mind when I work with my students. You have to balance out the caring with also sometimes having to be a “hard-ass.” I’m trying very hard to be a good role model to my students.
2) When I started working with one of my students he was very closed off to everyone and had two F’s and a couple D’s. Since we’ve been working together he’s really opened up to me and he has B’s and A’s. His biggest problem was motivation. While he still struggles with it he is doing better everyday.
3) I work really closely with his teacher and some of the other teachers for his other classes and give them a better perspective on what he is thinking and maybe why the assignment isn’t working for him and see if they would be flexible with other methods of teaching the same subject.
A role model should be someone who has a positive influence on a student. They are respectful, caring, and someone the student can trust. My goal is to show the student I work with that I care about him as a person, which means I also care that he is doing well in school and getting his work done. My goal this semester is simply to get to know the new student I am working with and help him learn how to stay organized and keep up on his assignments. I also want to make sure my focus is completely on my student during the time we are working together.
A role model should be able to model both behaviour and emotion, being able to demonstrate a good way to experience and embrace life in general, while remaining respectful of other people. All the role models in my life have shown not only this, but also a love of life and a curiosity and excitement that I personally have always valued very high, and have tried to emulate. I hope I have been at least somewhat successful in this regard, and I have seen some of my students becoming more open, more interested, more excited both to learn, and to ask questions that may or may not be directly related to whatever activity we’re doing, but that shows they are at least somewhat interested in the material and in exploring it farther. If nothing else, my goal as a tutor is to encourage students to be curious, to like learning, and to keep finding things that interest them. The best way I can think of to do this would be to model this type of curiosity and engagement as I work with them.
1)A role model should be someone with character and morals that should be emulated in society by the youth. It’s important to shape a child’s life by demonstrating just and virtuous character. I suppose I’ve embraced that role by being a caring, kind, and adequate teacher.
2)The student’s math ability has improved and he is more comfortable being around me compared to the beginning of the year. In fact, he looks forward to the class times that I show up.
3)Really the only thing I can do to help my student improve beyond my assistance is to encourage him to learn. I try to do that by being friendly to him and helping him to make learning connections so he no longer feels easily discouraged while learning.
1) A role model should be someone who works to be the best person that they can be. They should then transfer those ideas to their students and encourage them to do the right thing and to believe in themselves. As tutors we can have a huge impact on our students so it is important to ensure that we are always a positive influence in their lives.
2)So far all of my students have been able to go up in their reading levels which is very amazing! They have also improved their math skills and are able to do their homework with little to no additional help besides encouragement.
3)I will continue to work with their teacher to make sure that we are practicing the same concepts that they are required to know in class. I have found that simply telling them that they have done well has a huge impact on them wanting to continue to improve. I plan on being supportive and helping wherever I am needed.
1. A role model should be someone that you look up to and is someone who you want to be like. They should be good in character and in their actions. For the the child that I work with, I try to be someone that does things the right way and helps him to learn, while still having fun doing it.
2. I have seen my student become more and more interested to learn new subjects. He is excited when he figures out the correct answer, which is happening more and more often. He is more willing to put in more effort in order to learn as much as possible. He is also much more open to me, whether we are working on school work or playing a game.
3. The goals that I have for the rest of this semester relating to tutoring my student is to take all of the progress we have had and keep growing on it. There are a few types of work, mostly math, that I want to see him improve in. Even though he is good at some aspects of it, there as always ways to improve.
Working with children, it is very important to be a good role model. As a tutor we should do our best to be prepared and on time everyday so that students know that we value the time that we spend with them. It’s also important to be friendly and engaging with everyone at the school so students can see and learn from the way that you treat others, especially authority figures such as their teacher. If you don’t respect them, the students won’t feel like they have to either.
Over the year I’ve noticed that the students I work with have become comfortable working with me and actually look forward to the days that I come in. It seems like they are trying harder to improve or want to impress me with how much progress they have made each week. It is really great to see when their grades and/or social experiences improve over the weeks.
My goals as a tutor are to help them improve their reading and comprehension skills as well as making them enjoy reading or at least see a fun side of it so that in future years they will be more inclined to keep up with reading. I also hope to help them find pride in doing well in school. I hope to do this by being excited to be there everyday and to ask them questions about their books. If I can remember what’s going on in their books, they can too.