Tutoring Program

• About the Tutoring Program
• TheWrath of Tutoring Program
• Tutoring Program: The Motion Picture
• Tutoring Program and the Last Crusade
• Tutoring Program and the Temple of Doom
• Raiders of the Lost Tutoring Program

About the Tutoring Program

We're trying to set up a rotating study center (sometimes to be hosted at Ashdown, and sometimes at Hyde Park and Tobin Community Centers) to allow busy grad students to get involved in tutoring/mentoring on a semi-regular basis. The idea is that, so long as you're genuinely interested, you WILL NOT have to 100% guarantee that you'll make it every time. The trade-off is that it frequently takes a while to "break through" w/ the kids (I say this from personal experience), so we'll try to speed this process along w/ fun stuff (i.e. play some hoops, etc.)... the key is generally getting both tutor and tutoree to recognize each other as a real person & to make some sort of connection.

The Wrath of Tutoring Program

(World Cultures Fair)

Well, the best laid plans ...

Both of the comm. ctrs. basically bagged on us last Saturday: Hyde Park had at least told Amanda that they expected only 1-2 kids (based on permission slip returns), but Tobin never informed Dav or myself of any problems. So I diverted 2 kids from coming, we were left w/ one of the kids I tutor at Summerbridge. After sitting in a circle waiting and singing all 216 verses of kumbaya, we basically just decided to make the best of it. Though we all enjoyed eachothers' displays, stories, food etc., I felt really bad for those who'd put in a lot of work expecting to share their culture w/ a lot of kids. Despite a few no shows on our side as well, we added a few newbies to our ranks:

Carol Cheung: ZHOU (porridge), pastries from Chinatown, and the Silver Plate Dance
Karen Fang: made ollieballen, a dessert which (in case you couldn't guess) roughly translates to "fat free cubes"
Jingsong Wu: photos & magazines from China, and correcting my disinformation/bad Chinese

Also, especially big ups to:
Dav "Mr. sweet potato (no e)" Clark
Amanda "I only use granny smiths in my pie" Yarnell
Mike "hanging 10/10 w/ my tex-mex-cali casserole" Muno
Neda "whoops, how'd those baby pics. get into my slideshow of Yugoslavia" V.
Baochi "spring roll master" Nguyen
Arthur "that's 'r-tur', not Arthur, mais je suis le Champ d'" Elysee

-Chris

Tutoring Program: the Motion Picture

The Graduate Student Volunteer Corps (GSVC) invited local public school students for an "overnighter" on-campus from 7pm Friday, March 10 through 11:30am Saturday. Roughly 20 guests attended: primarily 3rd through 8th graders from the Cambridge area (mostly participants in the Summerbridge program) and the Hyde Park Community Center.

As with everything in life, things admittedly hit a few snags along the way: suffice it to say, Ron, Erwin, and I didn't get a whole lot of sleep Friday night! Nonetheless, as a whole, the event was a big success. Highlights of the final program included skating at the MIT rink, making pizzas and pancakes with the kids, and Neda Vukmirovic's "rose shattering" demonstration of cryogenics.

Since this event doubled as the 1st anniversary of the GSVC and our spring kick-off of our "Project Impact Wrench" tutoring/mentoring program, I'd like to acknowledge some of those responsible for it's success, in addition to the volunteers and participants (listed below). Apologizing in advance for omissions, an alphabetically-ordered series of "big ups" to

* Ashdown House (particularly the Ingram's, Christine Vardaro, the custodial and security staff);
* Dean Isaac Colbert for his continuing support of Project Impact Wrench in particular;
* MIT Athletics (namely Richard Hill, Dan Martin, and Sandra Let for granting us highly subsidized use of the rink, and also the attendant and skate guard for helping put smiles on our guests faces);
* MIT Campus Police (especially Sargent Vossmer) ... no, no incidents actually took place! I'm just thanking them for their support in case of any unforeseen eventuality;
* Neda Vukmirovic and her advisor, Dr. Elazer Edelman (HST) for making the "lab field trip" possible.

GSVC Volunteers were:
Amanda Yarnell
Erwin Lau
Ron Dror
Kimberly Hartwell
Karen Sachs
Dave Clark
Neda Vukmirovic
myself,
plus our crack squad of skate instructors (*all new recruits*)
Baochi Nguyen
An Nguyen
Hsiangwei Lu

Thanks also to our guests: Christina, Jesenia, and Jeannie Serrano, Angelica Rollins, Dominique Nichols, Latasha Britton, Bianca Cadet, Annakay Williamson, Alida Bernado, Lawrence Benjamin, Rashawn Roc-Velasquez, Dashon Hagbourne, Alicia Wilson, Kendra Turner, Iman Moore, Ara Diloyan, Emanuel Vincent, Xin Cao, and Shu Yang.

All in all, I think everyone got a lot out of the event... and I'll soon have the photos & video of all the smiles to prove it. I've already heard "When are we going to do it again?" from quite a few of my tutorees at Summerbridge... the event should serve as a springboard for upcoming Project Impact Wrench events. Thanks again to all who contributed in some way.

- Chris

Tutoring Program and the Last Crusade

Rehash of Sat. 1/22 study center: Yet again a rather bumpy start due to the weather: Tobin ended up a no show altogether. I appreciate the vols. who showed up and their flexibility. I think the actual center went pretty well: highlights were a gameshow called "make Spo do push-ups" (the kids wanted to play one of those new million $ games, but we're a little short on prize $) and making pizzas for lunch. Turnout for vols. wasn't shabby either, considering IAP absences (incl. the GSC ski trip). Please let me know if I neglected your name:

myself
Artur "le connection Haitian" Elysee *
John "not related to Dwight Yoakam despit the Oklahoma accent" Jochum
*
Mike "now raking in serious $ as Mr. Purple on the Family Channel " Muno
Donald Crankshaw redemption (sorry, I'm sure you've only been waiting for that)
Kimberly Hartwell * and Keith "swinging" Low "in his sweet chariot for a cameo appearance" *

Good turnout in that we had 1:1 ratio w/ the kids and 4 newbies.
Thanks to all those who showed, even for a little while.

-Chris

Tutoring Program and the Temple of Doom

Thanks to the following (hope this is everyone):

Dave Clark
Neda Vukmirovic
Tom Ewing (a new addn. to GSVC)
Serena Silver
Donald Crankshaw
Ron Dror
Mike Muno
Mike Neely

Well, it started out rough. Neither of Hyde Park's directors were in and the woman in charge of the group of students hadn't arrived yet. After trying to recruit kids away from a b-ball game upstairs (spectators), we launched off w/ a student/tutor ratio of about 1 to 3 (you do the math). Eventually, we (or rather our free food & drink perhaps) seemed to attract, and from my
end, it seemed to go pretty well. Basically did some 1 on 1 / small group reading practice w/ the kids, with Dave's juggling magic peas as a sideshow.

I also learned something: "chicks dig callouses". Actually one of the little girls really did think these were pretty cool (probably like built-in buttons in my hand, so that I wouldn't need a Nintendo controller).

-Chris

Raiders of the Lost Tutoring Program

Despite a shock to the system (2 pictures in MIT publications: the "bad hair day" photo in GSN, followed by the "GSVC President Demonstrates That the S in GSVC is for Snoozing" eyes closed shot in YESTERDAY's TECH), your "otherwise rather be hiding under a rock" of a leader still remembers how much fun we had at last Saturday's kick-off.
Non-photogenic though *I* may be, I want to thank James Camp who both volunteered AND got a great shot of Ron & Delin (+me) into the current Tech on page 33... excellent promo via the caption as well. I think EVERYBODY:

Delin "mean fightin' machine" Shen (I'm patting myself on the back for that)
James "Ansel Adams" Camp
Ron Dror
Dave "more juggling than 50 Bill Cosby's w/ their bowls of jello" Clark
Amanda Yarnell
Mike "Mr. Purple" Muno
Lee "Ying 0: " Yang "1"
Zak "no veggie burgers for me" Taylor
Sham Sokka
Neda Vukmirovic

really kicked some derriere. I especially want to cite Amanda's initiative: she brought her chemistry experiment to go (no, I'm not referring to lunch at the food trucks!), and got the kids involved while I was off trying to figure out why Tobin hadn't arrived yet. Likewise, I was glad to see people talking w/ Deborah Tynes of Hyde Park afterwards about their own pet projects... we get better when those more talented and creative (i.e. you) come to the rescue of those dumb blue guys (i.e. me).

Thought the little girl yelling "Thanks for the goo" summed up the success of the kick-off nicely... (assuming she was talking about Amanda's experiment and not the BBQ fare)... too bad that Tobin couldn't make it. Thanks for the energy from everyone who showed up... THIS is the real key of working w/ kids.

Now, if I can just stay out of the tabloids until my thesis is signed...

-Chris

MIT Graduate Student Volunteer Corps

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