Emily's Musings

Refgrunt, 2/15

My regular Tuesday night shift, 4 hours J. Some of the questions:

Mission Santa Barbara
All the members of the cabinet
Mary Kate & Ashley
Charlie Bone book #2 on tape
3 Little Birds by the Brothers Grimm
Morocco
Schwarzenneger (of course the only J-bio was from 1994 so it missed a few things)
Christopher Reeve
Jennie Hanaiali'i Woodd
Diego Rivera
Einstein
George Washington
Paul Revere
Neil Armstrong
Otherwise Known as Shelia the Great
Asian countries
Stone Fox
Caroline's Year (little house books)
President's Day
care of chihuahuas

and, surprisingly enough, I realized that I like tutoring math. It was pretty slow and a girl came over for help with her math homework. That's not really my job, but she needed the help and I spent a lot of time with her (despite some looks from the librarian on the desk with me) We tried to work on adding and subtracting fractions (finding common denominators, simplifying the answers, etc.) It was really great fun (fleeting thoughts of teaching math... quickly dismissed) and I realized what an art it is to be able to help with homework without giving too much away or without getting in over the kid's head (since I guess some of my explanations bordered on algebra instead of 4th grade math without realizing it). I didn't get anywhere near the right balance but it was fun to try -- to be aware of what I was saying and how much I was helping (or failing to get my ideas across). I admit I was rather horrified when she said that the teacher doesn't check or collect the homework (when I had asked if it shouldn't be a bit neater before turning it in). I wish we were one of those libraries with a staffed homework center where there were always tutors and resources on hand to help with situations like this -- a) If it hadn't been so quiet (the weather seemed to keep people at home) I would never had had the time to spend working so long with her on the problems and b) I don't have any training in this, no relationship with the schools to find out what the assignments and things are and c) helping with homework isn't really a supported activity on the desk. Anyway, like I said, I really enjoyed it (and really really hope she'll be able to take something away from it and be able to do the problems in class tomorrow)