Tutoring Terrifying Children

Do girls really like this show? Do they want to talk
about it? I have no idea.

     I am tutoring quite a few students in math right now. Most of them are in pre-calculus or calculus, but I cover pretty much anything. I've been tutoring high school students for a few years and am getting a pretty good system going. What I'm doing now for the first time is tutoring an elementary school student. It's a totally different ballgame, and what that I am not really trained for. What's more, it's with a fifth-grade, ten-year-old girl.

     I used to be really good with kids. I counseled at Camp Harlow for years and worked at an elementary school when I was a senior in high school. Every high schooler is good with kids if they want to be, because they are already everything a kid wants to be: older. When you are 17, you're already cool. By wearing a hat backwards and driving your own car and talking to other high schoolers, kids love you.

I didn't draw this, but I wish I could

     Beyond that, however, I am essentially a kid myself. I honestly like the cartoons Spongebob Squarepants and Phineas and Ferb. if Power Rangers was on I would probably watch it if they were air-fighting and not trying to develop plot. I know lots about Pokemon. I can talk and play sports with anyone but also like video games and nerdy things. I have a lot of random, probably-true animal facts at my disposal from working at a zoo. (Did you know that a kangaroo's nasal passage runs around it's brain before going to the lungs, in order to ventilate its brain? That might be true.) I think that farts are very funny if timed correctly.
     But my main two tricks with kids are this: 1) talk to them like they are an adult, and 2) call them "dude." I've found that kids really respond to being talked to like adults, because it doesn't happen hardly ever. I don't raise the pitch ofmy voice or talk super slow or generally baby-talk them, and we can have a normal conversation about how awesome the Dragonzord is (answer: super awesome). I don't talk to their parents about them, I talk to them. They appreciate this. And when you call them "dude," they just assume both you and they are cool, and everyone wins.
     As you've probably noticed, all of my strategies for relating to kids really pertain to boy-kids. I always babysat or camp-counselled boys. I don't know what the equivalent show to "Power Rangers" for girls is, and I am not a Bronie who knows about My Little Ponies. I can't talk fashion, don't want to talk about cute boys, and am not crafty. Girls are (still) terrifying.
     (additionally, at "teacher school" when I got my master's degree and teaching license, pretty much every lesson ended the same way: "gentlemen, DON'T EVER BE ALONE WITH A FEMALE STUDENT EVER EVER OR YOU WILL DIE." We could be talking about returning tests promptly and the instructor would have a statement like "when you are grading your tests make sure you are consistent, and guys, if a girl walks into your room while you are grading by yourself make sure you grab someone to join you immediately." You think I'm kidding, but I'm just exaggerating.)

     I was thinking over all of these things before my first session with the totally intimidating fifth-grade girl. Between me no longer being a cool-by-default 17-year-old, her not being a boy, and me not being around kids for about eight years, I was nervous.

I recognize this is my best weapon for
combating little girls.

     So, before our first tutor session, I was running through all of my conversation options. I had to win her over from day one - not so much for my sake, but because she needs a tutor and I want her to enjoy math, which means she needs to enjoy her time with her math tutor. When she walked in I shook her hand and said hello and had her come sit at the table with me while her dad sat in a chair nearby and read. I told her I liked the hat she was wearing, and the sparkles on her jacket (then felt stupid, was "sparkles" the right term to use there?) and I grabbed a bunch of colored pens for us to do our math with. Colors and pens was a big part of my plan. I tried to have some crafty-things that we did, and I complimented her on her handwriting. I even talked about how hard it is for me to make my "twos" look pretty when I write them. She met baby Wyatt and answered my questions about her family and class. She even giggled when I asked towards the end of the session "so, are there any boys in your class you think are cute?" and promptly explained that boys don't get cute for a long, long time. Getting a giggle was huge.
    I pulled out all the stops. I did everything I could. In fact, I used Letterman's go-to questioning when he interviews a kid on the Late Show: "Are you married? Do you have a house? Do you have a car? Can you drive?" When the kid says no to all these things, Letterman says "sounds pretty boring." The first session went well. Now what? I'm out of ideas already. If you have any suggestions, send them my way. We've had a few sessions and we don't have a common ground yet, meaning nothing to have a conversation about, just me asking questions and her answering them. I am working towards conversation, which I know doesn't necessarily happen with grade-school kids. At the same time, when I counselled boys we would talk about things like Charizard and Dragonball (not what it sounds like). I am sure we can get to the point where she and I can talk about things too, I just might need to get invested in Adelle or something, I don't know (seriously, if you haven't gathered, I have no idea).
     In the meantime I am still nervous before she comes over. Here I am, a math teacher that doesn't blink when a student wants to come over and get calculus help on stuff I haven't seen in years, and I am sweating out working with an adorable, sweet little ten-year-old girl on her long division. Some things never change I suppose.


(PS: if you didn't click that "bronie" link above, it's pretty fascinating/sad. There's a whole bunch of 20-30-something aged men who watch and blog about the new My Little Ponies TV show, and the call themselved Bronies. Look into it: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/06/bronies-my-little-ponys/)