Let's Read

Wed, 20 Nov 2013 16:12:00 -0800

Some of my most vivid memories of childhood are of sitting around the dinner table with my mom and sister while we did homework. I can remember the texture white brick wall I leaned against while scribbling down a list of the causes of the Civil War, and the themes of the young-adult novel Heartlight, and also algebra. This is mainly because when I was a student, I would literally do none of my homework until the very end of the semester, and then eventually my mom would force me to sit down and do every piece of outstanding schoolwork in one day. One would think I'd learn my lesson after the first time my weekend was eaten up with 20 hours of homework, but I was pretty convinced that eventually my teachers would just get the hint and quit asking me. School was not the highlight of my life, is what I'm driving at.

So when I found myself standing in a Pueblo del Rio school room, wearing an index card name tag with a monkey sticker and about to tutor a kid in long division, the same thought kept coming to me: I was terrible at this stuff when it was fresh, how could I help a little kid with it after almost 20 years?