This week has been a special week. I’m not subbing for a teacher – I’m tutoring students, one-on-one. Here’s the deal: for various reasons these kids are failing 3 or more classes. In an effort to help them succeed, I’ve been working with them to catch up.

The kids aren’t unintelligent. They aren’t incapable. They each have one particular hang-up that haunts them. As I’ve been working with them and identifying these, I started to learn from them. Here’s what I saw:

1) Boy who knows the info, can do the work, but needs a little motivation and doesn’t have any at home. What does he need? AN ENFORCER! He need someone to sit with him for 30 min. a day to make sure he finishes his homework BEFORE playing.

2) Girl who knows the info, can do the work, but is SO unorganized that she only turns in completed homework when she’s lucky enough to find it. What does she need? ORGANIZATION/A PLAN! When each class has it’s own folder with completed work on one side and unfinished work on the other she’ll always know where to find things.

And then I saw me:

1) I need an enforcer – someone who challenges me to keep writing. I have that now. We aren’t a crit group. It’s just me and a gal friend and we tell each other our writing goals for the week. Then we get together to make sure we did it. I write a lot more when I know she’ll be checking up on me.

2) A plan…I still need that. This week was horrible. I haven’t had time to breath, much less write. I let subbing be my excuse not to write (I don’t know when I’ll be working; the times change every day; blah, blah, blah). The fact of the matter is this – I could say no! I don’t HAVE to teach every day. I don’t HAVE to work all week. I’ve been choosing to, and it’s making me crazy. It’s time I came up with a plan. I need to organize my time and schedule things in. I need to get my folders together and figure out which subject goes in the blue one!

So that’s what I learned this week.

I also learned not to assume things about myself. Wasn’t it a few days ago when I said I wouldn’t be posting again until Saturday? Wasn’t that three posts ago?

Shows you what I know… 🙂