Opinion
Student Achievement Opinion

Volunteer

By Edward Cowan — June 04, 2003 3 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print
Giving the students most in need what they need the most.

The short, pudgy 13-year-old boy wouldn’t look at me. I was trying to help him with a math problem—arithmetic, really, although his class is called “7th Grade Math.” It is a class for English-as-a-second-language students. Most of our 16 students were born elsewhere—Central America, Eastern Europe, China. Two were born in the United States, but are weak students and are with the ESL group.

“Why I got to look at you?” the pudgy boy asked, sneaking a sidelong glance at me to see how I took this mildly defiant response. That was Juan (not his real name), in December, when I began to give him special attention two or three times a week. He was—and still is, sometimes—a boy who pays little attention to what the class is doing. His responses were—and sometimes still are—languid. “He has problems at home,” said the teacher, with whom I am working for a second consecutive academic year as a volunteer tutor. Our school is in one of the more affluent (read “white”) neighborhoods of Northwest Washington, D.C., and has a heterogeneous population, about 60 percent minority or Hispanic.

One morning in March, when we were reducing fractions to simplest terms, Juan drew my attention to a fraction on the blackboard. He had written it on his own initiative. He wanted me to see that it was his work, that he had reduced it—and that he was interested.

Thereafter, Juan’s attentiveness improved, irregularly. Some days he was out of it—looking around, playing with something, joshing in Spanish with another boy, flirting lightly with a girl. But some days he attended to his schoolwork and showed that he could solve some problems, if he tried. When I took four students to the library for a review of multiplication tables, Juan tried to be the first to answer each “times” problem I posed. A European girl who is often sulky vied with him, enthusiastically.

I had similar experiences at the junior high school last year and earlier at a senior high school in Southeast Washington, the most impoverished neighborhood in the District of Columbia. Absenteeism there was high, indifference rampant. Students lay their heads on their desks, half-asleep, totally tuned out.

Yet, there, as later at the junior high school, I found that the most seemingly indifferent, slack students responded to close-up, individual attention. I could see a glimmer turn on in a child’s eyes when I gave her or him my undivided attention. Teachers told me that many came from single-parent homes in which no interest was shown in them or in their school work.

How do we give students, especially those who start with scanty English, troubled homes, or weak learning skills, the intensive attention that may help them learn better?

No teacher or administrator will be surprised by my experience. “This has been known for a hundred years,” says Polly Greenberg, a nationally known specialist in early-childhood development and education. “The relationship with the teacher and making learning meaningful to the student are what matter most.”

The problem is that the D.C. public schools and most other systems cannot afford the luxury of pupil-teacher ratios of 1-to-1 or even 4-to-1. The taxpayers won’t pay for them. Public schools must vie—at the local, state, and federal levels—for budget dollars with other worthy purposes, such as public safety, roads, sanitation, environmental protection, defense—and tax cuts. With a weak economy strangling state and local treasuries, public schools are struggling just to keep what they have.

How, then, to give students, especially those who start with scanty English, troubled homes, or weak learning skills, the intensive attention that may help them learn better? More use of volunteers may be one way. Anyone my age (69) knows educated people with free time. In fact, in Washington, there is an organization that prepares and assigns volunteer tutors to public schools, and monitors them. The tutors are a free resource.

And yet, there is little encouragement of tutors. At both schools I have volunteered at, it was difficult to find teachers who wanted such help. Integrating a tutor into the classroom complicates a teacher’s job. What should the tutor do? Should the tutor work in the corner or take his few students to another classroom, or the library, or the cafeteria? Or just drag chairs into the corridor? No doubt teachers can raise other objections.

Children with emotional problems and learning disabilities do better in small groups, as a rule. If administrators and teachers and elected school boards reach out to the community, they can tap in to human resources that will enlarge what public schools can offer students most in need of close-up, personal attention.

Edward Cowan, a retired New York Times correspondent, is an independent writer and editor in Washington.

Related Tags:

Events

Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Privacy & Security Webinar
Navigating Cybersecurity: Securing District Documents and Data
Learn how K-12 districts are addressing the challenges of maintaining a secure tech environment, managing documents and data, automating critical processes, and doing it all with limited resources.
Content provided by Softdocs

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Student Achievement Quiz Quiz Yourself: How Much Do You Know About Improving Student Outcomes?
Answer 7 questions about improving student learning outcomes.
Student Achievement Spotlight Spotlight on Student Engagement & Hands-On Learning
This Spotlight will help you learn about reducing student ambivalence towards math, proven strategies for reengaging students, and more.


Student Achievement What the Research Says Next NAEP to Take Deeper Look at Poverty's Connection to Students' Achievement
Researchers say the new measure could yield a more accurate reading of how family income affects students' test scores.
5 min read
Glitch stylized photo of a white woman with a hood over her head.
iStock/Getty
Student Achievement Opinion Traditional Grading May Not Be as Straightforward as It Seems
It can demotivate students, reflect inaccurate learning, and be biased against slower learners, argues an equitable grading advocate.
9 min read
Image shows a multi-tailed arrow hitting the bullseye of a target.
DigitalVision Vectors/Getty