Tuesdays make me hopeful

...because on Tuesdays, I get to tutor A. If you've talked to me about school since August 24th, you have likely heard about A. He's the one who keeps me on my toes all day long and keeps me strategizing, reflecting, adjusting when I go home at night. In front of other students he has a reputation to protect, a tough exterior that hides his sensitive feelings, academic insecurities, and the fact that most of the time, he just misses his mom.

But when it's just me and him and a book, I get to see the brilliant kid living inside every labeled "behavior problem". During our first session, I quickly realized that although he has a great grasp of short vowel sounds, he completely missed (or wasn't paying attention to, or was climbing on a table during, or was sitting in the office instead of learning) the lessons in first grade about the "bossy e" at the end of words that makes the vowel say its own name (the long vowel sound in gate, pride, rose, etc.) I grabbed a whiteboard and some magnetic letters, and within ten minutes, he had it. Since that lesson a week ago, he sees it everywhere. When we're reading in class, when he's writing in workshop, even when I'm in the middle of teaching a lesson...it's hard to get too upset at him for calling out of turn when he's yelling out with these big eyes open wide, "IT'S THE BOSSY E!!!"

His days are still up and down. But there is nothing, I repeat, nothing, more gratifying and shivers-up-your-spine inspiring than sitting next to a child (especially a child like A, who already, at the age of 7, is a year behind in reading even after repeating first grade) and watching him literally learn to read in front of your eyes. This child has no learning disability. He is quick, he is bright. Get through all that behavior and insecurity, and here's just another kid who wants to learn, wants to be successful, and whose entire face still lights up when I tell him he can have the Blues Clues book sitting in my library. It's so hard to see sometimes, standing in front of 20 children for 8 hours a day, but in the 45 minutes A and I have together on Tuesdays, I am privileged to witness the life-changing power of learning. And nothing gives me greater hope. ("It's the bossy e!")