David and I met at 5:30 on Tuesday, Feb 24 and at 4:30 on Wednesday, February 25th. The pattern with David is always closer to 90 minutes than one hour. Often we are a bit longer, depending upon conversations with his mom. David has fallen into a good pattern or rhythm. School homework takes priority. In recent weeks, Mrs. Hong has brought in special work that she would like David to work on. This is significant, because she is now absolutely confident that David can read one, two or three chapters in a book and meet the writing requirements of his 4th grade teacher. Her expectations for David are quite a bit higher than when we first started, but it has been a gradual process of bringing David along and giving him some measure of control over the order of the work to be done. It is always a playful negotiating process with David at the beginning. We both know that he is going to protest the work - and then he is going to do it. His classic attempts to divert attention away from the work are met with smiles, playful teasing and my physically touching what must be done and what remains after that. As long as he is making progress, he is allowed to talk about something interesting that is outside the immediate task. This starts at the beginning of our sessions and happens three or four times. Each time, he is increasing his expression, testing new words, asking questions about monsters that he knows I do not know. So he explains them and then returns to his work.
Flexibility combined with keeping focus on the task at hand works well with David. Encouraging his curiosity keeps him reading and also leads to some interesting expansions of word definitions. A classic was his definition of scattering and using it in a sentence. I was not ready for this on. "The mice scattered as the cats entered the room. The cats scattered as the dogs entered the room. The dogs scattered when people entered the room. The people scattered as the earth moved. The earth was created among the stars. The stars in the universe have been scattering away from each other since creation." Okay!! I surely was not going to stop him as he experimented with levels of scatter.
I think he hopes that really creative work in one area will buy him some slack when it gets to a word he is less familiar with. A good example is "organization" - which another tutor defined as a body of people joined together .... So his sentence for me was, "My body is an organization." I agreed that on some level of biology and chemistry that is true, but for this examination it means something different. We spent some time on that one.
I also note for his mom, which of her exercises he wants to do at home and which of these might require someone sitting with him. On the exercises that he did for me, I note which ones he quickly solved correctly; which ones took a little help; and which ones took a lot of help. I was pleasantly surprised this week that he chose to do some of the more difficult exercises with me and save the easier ones for home.
Finally we turn to his reading and writing. On Tuesday night, he worked so very hard with more difficult passages, fought hard for comprehension and productive use of new vocabulary. I was very proud of all the work that he did on Tuesday night. So on Wednesday, when he picked an easier reading passage, I just smiled, said "Okay, you get an easy one today because of last night, but next week, no more tree house series books." He smiled, nodded and he knows that will be true.
While David played on the computer, I met with his mom to review what things David handles with ease, where he needs just a little help and where he needs to be pushed because he required too much help. We always agree to an approach to the days in between and share "war stories" about how David will try to game the system. I am not his parent, so I have the luxury of inviting him to give it his best shot - and then get back to work.
Give David a little space to play his games and then bring it right back to the job at hand seems to work. He is playful and respectful. I think he reads giving him room try to game the system as a sign of friendship and respect, backed by the inevitability of accomplishing the work. Encouraging his curiosity about what comes next is, I think, a key to working productively with David. Most of all, to sincerely like him and learn his intrinsic motivations are key. The best way to motivate others is not to try too hard. Find out what already motivates them and tie a piece of the task to that motivation. He does the rest as something like the price of admission to get to what he really likes; so finding the hook between task and existing motivation structure is key to working with him. He is also a bundle of energy - physical and mental - so occasional flights of fancy in the midst of a lesson just burn some of that off and he comes right back to task.
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