Tag Archives: Tutoring

The Tutor

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After the interminable summer of 2017—a summer oppressively sad following a major loss—I ended up taking a position: I would be tutoring youth at a nearby private school. Since it was 10 minutes from my house in Brunswick, the location seemed right. It was at night, so I had my days to be down and depressed (or in theory, be able to write).

I told the academic dean who hired me “the story.” I let him know that I couldn’t commit to anything long-term. Amazingly, he was okay with that. That was the extent of what I could handle at that moment in my life.

On my third night, I ended up paired with a young man who needed help with statistics. I hadn’t done statistics since I’d been taking night school classes during my CMP days in the mid-1990s. Somehow, I remembered enough to provide some help to my protégé.

He was back the following night. The two of us became a team, an academic Odd Couple of sorts. Over the remainder of the 2017-18 school term, we worked on English, History, and fortunately for me—he dropped statistics. The person supervising the night Guided Study program asked me if I’d want to work with Billy as a one-on-one assignment. Since I had nothing better to do with my evenings, I agreed. Continue reading →

In Praise of Short Stories

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The short story has been a neglected writing style in my reading. This summer, I made a point of addressing it when I read Ottessa Moshfegh’s excellent collection, Homesick For Another World. After I finished, I vowed to read more similar collections.

A perk of working with high school-age youth is having the chance to revisit writers and writing that you were equally clueless about when you were the same age as these young charges assigned to you.

Of course, being a tutor, sometimes you must scramble in reacquainting yourself with said writing from the past. A few of those writers? Try James Thurber, J.D. Salinger, George Orwell, and Shirley Jackson. Orwell and Salinger haven’t been tough. I read The Catcher in the Rye last year and have read it several times over the last decade. Ditto for Orwell, and in fact, I made a habit of annually rereading 1984 during the 2000s and the Bush presidency. Thurber and Jackson are less familiar.

A week ago, I was time-traveling back to Thurber’s “The Catbird Seat,” and dull little (or so we think!) Mr. Martin. Admittedly, I have never loved Thurber like some literary types have.

On Sunday, I was co-reading Shirley Jackson’s short story, “Charles,” and helping a student craft a paragraph about parents not recognizing flaws in a child. The discussion that ensued was meaningful to me on several levels.

Shirley Jackson, American writer (seen in this April 16, 1951 AP photo)

Save for “The Lottery,” few people who travel in non-literary circles know Jackson’s work. This New Yorker article is worth reading if you’d like to know more about a wonderfully (weird) and “haunted” writer.

“Charles” wasn’t particularly strange or odd. It was a story that had humor and was what might be called an “unsentimental” look at life as a mother during a particular time in America. In Jackson’s case, this would be the 1940s, a very different time period than our own. As a writer, Jackson shaped it with sly parental incredulity and humor, too.

Apparently, the story was published in Mademoiselle and later, was included in her collection, The Lottery/The Adventures of James Harris.

It begins thus:

The day my son Laurie started kindergarten he renounced corduroy overalls with bibs and began wearing blue jeans with a belt; I watched him go off the first morning with the older girl next door, seeing clearly that an era of my life was ended, my sweet-voiced nursery-school tot replaced by a long-trousered, swaggering character who forgot to stop at the corner and wave good-bye to me. . . . 

Like the parents Jackson is writing about, most think their child is the best. Love compels you to want to feel this way. This also opens the door to the possibility that you’ll overreach and have unrealistic expectations, too.

Of course, it’s special when parents of a child get to witness an adult who validates the faith they had in him or her.

Better Days

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During the summer of 2017, and even at times, this past summer, recovery from grief and loss seemed improbable. Losing a son like Mark assured me my spot in line, stuck in a position and place I never asked to be in.

Life is now pockmarked by sad anniversaries. These will be forever oriented around an event that turned lives upside-down: the last time we saw Mark; the start of his final walk; his birthday, Christmas, his death…and on and on the calendar turns.

When I returned from my Father’s Day road trip in late June, and with July’s swelter, once more I was moored in sadness and hopelessness. The odds that things might dramatically improve were not any that a successful gambler would take.

We’re fortunate to have an exceptional grief counselor. At an appointment prior to summer, in May, she reframed how I was feeling as “moving through grief.” Her suggestion and semantic reorientation from “moving beyond grief” worked for me.

I’m not dismissing that my physical malady and SI joint issue contributed to the darkness I experienced most days. Sitting at home with nothing to do and with no prospects of anyone intervening dropped a veil of interminability over July.

My walking partner and friend, Paul, was also experiencing back issues. Both of us had dusted-off our tennis games during the summer and fall of 2017. This tennis season, neither of us was capable of swinging a racket, or chasing balls on the baseline—we were simply struggling to remain upright.

August forced me to dig into my Medicare certification requirements. I wasn’t eager for this three to four-week period of completing modules in order to pass the federally-mandated certification exam that allows agents little wiggle room. You basically have to know your stuff if you want to sell this type of health insurance. On top of these strict federal mandates, each plan imposes additional requirements before being deemed “ready to sell.” The good news for me this year is that I’m contracted with three plans, instead of last year’s solitary option.

Tutoring at the private school nearby may have saved me in 2017. No matter how dark and difficult things felt, I knew I had to gather my wits about me late every afternoon in preparation for the student I was assigned to work with.

Driving onto the stately grounds of the school replete with a 19th century mansion always managed to enhance my mood and remind me that it was time for me to “perform” for two hours. And that’s what I did beginning in September through early December when the students left for Christmas break.

Teaching and tutoring are noble endeavors.

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Never Far Away

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Life goes on. At least that’s what they tell us. Actually, by repeating the phrase back at other people, it helps make them feel better about you that you are feeling better—but you’re not. You’re just moving with the flow, swept up in the momentum of life moving forward.

In the fall, I found out a private school nearby needed people to come in at night and help some of their students during a time slot called “guided study.” I told the director a bit of my story and how I would try to make it through the first week, but that there were “no promises.” I did. And then, I made it through the next week, and the week after that. We are now in the month when the students I’ve met across weeks numbering in the 30s are looking forward to the end of the trimester and going home. I did better than I thought I would.

Maybe the reason I managed to do the “life going on” dance had to do with a young man I met my second week of tutoring. He needed help with his statistics assignment. I hadn’t done statistics in decades, especially statistical word problems that required solutions relevant to terms like median, standard deviation, mode, and variance. I had to draw “pictures” to figure them out. He said to me, “why are you drawing pictures?” We both learned that he was visual and this offered us a window into understanding his learning style.

The next night, I was asked if I wanted to work with him one-on-one. I said I’d give it a shot. We’ve been meeting four nights a week (and Sunday nights, too) since late September. I’ve learned that he likes order and routine. I’ve tried to create that five nights a week.

My days are spent working on other things. I’m writing a book. A week ago, I drove to Waterville and then, Oakland, and offered a new seminar I’ve developed, The ABCs of Medicare. I began my week by sending out another newsletter for the Mark Baumer Sustainability Fund. Yes, life goes on. But you are never far away.

Springtime has dawdled this year, taking its sweet time getting here. Those of us who live in the Northeast have learned patience with the seasons—those who haven’t must contend with their constant carping (that does nothing to speed along seasonal change). At the very least, they’re always going to be disappointed. I’ve learned that life can be disappointing. Grief and loss are excellent instructors.

Spring is also a time of year that reminds me of all the previous beginnings of baseball dating back to the time when I was probably five or six and learning that baseball seasons all have starting points. These always correspond with spring’s arrival.

These (spring) memories are never far away.

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