Week Five: Tutoring

November 15th-November 19th 2010

School has still not resumed yet. Troy Nestor and I coordinated tutoring sessions for grade six students to attend throughout this week. The lessons are not mandatory, but students are highly encouraged to attend them. As previously stated, students have lost a lot of learning time due to the hurricane. The Common Entrance Exam is quickly approaching and students need all the study time they can get.

Troy and I had difficulty finding other teachers who were willing and able to give tutoring lessons this week. Many have children of their own and could not make the appropriate arrangements for childcare. The Ministry of Education suggested that no tutoring takes place because of the lack of water. However, we were able to use a community center near the school, that has a water tank, to conduct lessons. Out of the 40 grade six students, we had a turn out of about 20. It was nice to see that some students were able to come and make use of the extra lessons. Hurricane damage did make is difficult for everyone to reach the school grounds. Some roads are still blocked and bus transportation is still not back to normal.

The students seemed very eager to come back to school. Many of them said that they were bored spending so much time at home. School is not only a learning institution for them, but also a place to grow and develop socially. They missed not only the academics, but also their peers and the staff. The same students attended the lessons throughout the whole week, however, we did have to back track at times to compensate for the new-comers who straggled in over the week.

The lessons were 4 hours long, focusing particularly on Math and English. This was because Troy and I were the only teachers who were available to tutor. He taught Math to the students and I taught English,but we both helped each other carry out the lessons. It was nice to have another person to continually make sure the students were on the right track. It was refreshing to come back and see the students so anxious to learn and participate.

After lessons on Friday (November 19th), we had an all staff meeting at Monchy to discuss how things would unfold when classes resumed on Monday (November 22nd). Principal Jean stressed the importance of taking a day to debrief about the hurricane with the students. Teachers were instructed to counsel the students and show how lessons can be learned from a tragedy. A counselor came in to talk with the staff and share appropriate ways to discuss the event with the students. Many of them were personally affected by the disaster and it is extremely important that the students know they have continual support from all members of the school.

We also learned that the CEE will be pushed back 2 weeks later than planned due to the loss of teaching time. Principal Jean also decided that formal examinations will be suspended until after Christmas break. The rest of the term will be spent reviewing and teaching new concepts.