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The Truth Of The Matter

October 15, 2007 By Jenny Ryan 5 Comments

Jean Browman of Cheerful Monk tagged me to participate in this meme called “Caring, Compassion, Charity”. According to Alex Shalman, the originator, its purpose is to “write about the top 1 or 2 causes that simply make your palms sweat, your heart bleed, and send tears rolling down your cheeks. Make sure you tell everyone why this cause is so important to you as an individual….As people open up what they’re truly passionate about, we’ll get a better grasp on what WE can do to change the world, and why it’s important.”

So I had this whole, long, elaborate blog post all planned out to talk about why I love what I do so much, which is tutor high school students in Spanish. I was going to talk about how satisfying it is to have the time to work one-on-one with specific kids over long periods of time, and to have the ability to establish a relationship with them where they see me as an adult they can trust and talk to about all manner of life issues. I was going to talk about how gratifying it is to see a student, who would normally fall through the cracks in the typical high school environment, blossom when they finally get the chance to be seen, heard, and appreciated. I was going to talk about how exciting it is in that moment when the student finally connects with their own, unique ability to learn, and sees that, “Oh yeah, I really can do this!”

I really do love what I do, for all of those reasons and more. But the truth of the matter is that, when it all comes down, I really love getting to spend all my time having conversations like this:

I am working with a student, and have just asked him to write all his vocabulary words down on a sheet of paper, with the Spanish word on the left and its English translation on the right.

My student: sighing, because he doesn’t know most of the words and has to look each one up in the dictionary.

My student: tiring of doing the assignment “the long way”, gets the bright idea to try and trick me into giving him the answers.

Me: not stupid, unfortunately for him.

My student (casually sliding his hand over the paper so that I can’t see what is-or what isn’t-written there. Unfortunately for him, he’s a few minutes too late.): “Um, I can’t read what I wrote right there. What does ‘barato’ mean again?”

Me: “You mean you can’t read what you ‘wrote’ there in that blank space, the space where you never actually put anything down?”

My student (stunned): “Wow. Usually that works.”

Me: “I’ve tutored a lot of students.” (And dude, you’re 12. It’s not like you’re some sort of Criminal Mastermind.)

I love my work.

Filed Under: CFG And Her Students, Teaching: It's Not For Wimps Tagged With: being a tutor, why i love tutoring

A Little Learnin’ Is A Dangerous Thing

October 10, 2007 By Jenny Ryan 3 Comments

Today I was talking with a woman who works in an elementary school about the effect of sex ed on one of her 5th graders.

Apparently he was causing problems in his classroom, so she pulled him into the hallway to ask him what was going on.

“I just can’t do my work today,” he declared dramatically.

“Well, why not?” she asked.

Confident in the unassailable excuse provided him by his newfound knowledge he replied, “Because of MY PUBERTY!”

Filed Under: People Say The Funniest Things, Teaching: It's Not For Wimps Tagged With: funny stories, teaching

With My Finger On The Pulse Of “Hip”

May 23, 2007 By Jenny Ryan 7 Comments

Lately I’ve seen this blogging meme making the rounds where you Google “your name+needs” and then list the first five or so things that come up. Being nothing if not a Shamless Troller For Stuff I Can Write About On My Blog I googled, and I came up with these results:

-Jenny needs a job. (No thanks, I’m good.)
-Jenny needs to find herself a baller. (First, Jenny needs to know what the heck that even means.)
-Jenny needs a cold shower. (Yes, but only because of the fever that’s accompanying this damn strep throat!)
-Jenny needs a smack daddy. (This scares me.)
-Jenny needs attention (Hm, truer words were never spoken.)
-Jenny needs to see herself as a good reader. (Not a problem.)

I had no idea what a baller was (and I’m kind of afraid to know what a smack daddy is), but I wasn’t worried because today I was tutoring the high school student who is my source of knowledge for all things “hip” and current.

“So, what’s a ‘baller’ “, I asked her when she got here.

“Is that a serious question?” she asked in disbelief.(Sarcasm: the price I pay for knowledge.)

When I assured her that it was, she informed me that it had multiple meanings. On the one hand it can apparently mean that “you have pimps and ho’s around you”, or it can mean that you’re really good at something.

“So, you could say that you’re a baller at Spanish. And I? Well I could say that I’m a baller at life.”

(Gee, thanks.)

We went on with the lesson until we got to a tricky problem involving a certain verb conjugation.

“Why is that the answer?” she demanded, when I corrected her mistake.

“Because [involved grammar explanation that you probably don’t really care about].”

“That really pisses me off!”

“I know. It’s because Spanish is out to get you.”

“Jenny, the whole world is out to get me. I’m a baller at life. That’s just the price I pay.”

Filed Under: CFG And Her Students, Teaching: It's Not For Wimps Tagged With: blog memes, blogging, working with teenagers

Teaching Spanish To Engineers

May 18, 2007 By Jenny Ryan 3 Comments

Yesterday in class I taught the Spanish words for the days of the week and the months of the year. Then, in order to give the students a chance to use the new vocabulary, I did some oral drills.

Me (in Spanish): “What are the months of the summer?”

The answer I was looking for: “June, July, and August.”

The Answer I Got From An Engineer: “Well, summer doesn’t officially start until June 21st, when the month is almost over. So in order to get 3 full months included in the season you will need to apply the ANSI Standard Of Rounding Up. So the answer would be July, August, and September.”

Filed Under: CFG And Her Students, Teaching: It's Not For Wimps Tagged With: engineers are funny, teaching spanish to businesspeople

Higher Education

March 16, 2007 By Jenny Ryan 7 Comments

Me (to a tutoring student): So, what else are you working on these days?

My student: Well, I have to do a math rap in class tomorrow.

Me: ……

My student: I’m doing it to “Amazing Grace”.

My student: “Oh, pa-ra-le-el lines,…”

Me: That’s…just…so wrong.

Filed Under: CFG And Her Students, CFG Is Not A Mathemagician, Teaching: It's Not For Wimps Tagged With: tutoring, working with high school students

And Lo, The Truth, It Doth Hurt

February 17, 2007 By Jenny Ryan 11 Comments

Yesterday I taught a Spanish class in which one of the students happens to be my husband. We were doing a sentence completion exercise, and one of the other students asked me how to say “space travel”.

“Well ‘space’ is ‘espacio’,” I began.

“That sounds like a word you just made up,” interjected my husband (who, I feel compelled to point out, has attended all of six Spanish classes in his life as opposed to my (::cough::Master’s Degree in Spanish::cough), as he reached for his Spanish-English dictionary.

“So, what does the dictionary say,” I asked, with just a wee bit of testiness in my voice.

“Espacio,” he replied.

“Oh really? It says exactly what I just told you two seconds ago?” I taunted, feeling the sweet wave of vindication rush through me.

“Wow,” interjected one of the other students. “I’d love to see what arguments are like in the Ryan household.”

“Well, we have had to pull out the Almanac occasionally,” I said, in the tone of one who has just admitted to Bringing Out The Big Guns.

“I bet they Google everything and then one of them is like, ‘Hah, I can type faster than you so I win’,” continued the student, officially destroying for me any remaining vestiges of pride and vindication.

Ooh, man-the truth? Really does hurt.

Filed Under: Teaching: It's Not For Wimps, The Naked Truth, The Perfect Blend Tagged With: competition between spouses

The Difference Between Teenagers And Adults

February 2, 2007 By Jenny Ryan 9 Comments

1. Me: sitting down to tutor a high school student.

Me: “OK, please get out your Spanish book.”

My student: “Oh. I was supposed to bring my book?”

Me: “THUNK.” (The sound of my head hitting the table in despair.)

2. Me: getting ready to teach a class of businesspeople.

Manager: “[Student 1] and [Student 2] can’t be here today because they are on a business trip. So they were wondering if you’d mind teaching this class on a conference call, because they don’t want to miss anything.”

Me: unable to respond, due to the tears of joy running down my face.

Filed Under: Teaching: It's Not For Wimps Tagged With: Add new tag, teaching spanish to businesspeople

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