Matt TP #6

Yesterday Jeffrey and I met for our third lesson. As always, we both had a lot of fun. This time however Jeffrey's mom wanted me to go over some classwork Jeffrey had had problems with, so we had to take a break from the stories and review some simple worksheets.

This week Jeffrey's interests had apparently shifted from skateboards to Indians, so we picked out some books on native Americans. I attempted to read Jeffrey a book on Pocahontas, but it was above his level and furthermore non-fiction seems to hold his already capricious attention less well than stories. I ended up skipping a bunch of pages and giving him a kinda crappy, short version of the book. Giving up, I told him to just tell his parents to get him the Disney movie.

What was really awkward about this experience was trying to explain race and racism to Jeffrey. I was trying to keep it PC, but trying to explain what 'pale-face' and redskin meant was tougher than I had imagined for a kid growing up with no conception of racially-based hate. Jeffrey kept asking stuff like, “So they're...dark people and they don't like the white skin people?” and, flustered, I said something like “No, they're not dark people! They're uhhh..red. But that's not important - their color isn't important. But it was important then because people didn't know it wasn't important.” “...” I think next time I'll leave this topic up to Jeffrey's parents.

For the second half, Jeffrey and I went over some of his classwork. It went pretty well, but again the main challenge here was keeping him focused. When he remained focused, he was able to correct all the errors he had made in class. We tried a worksheet which reviewed long vs short vowel sounds, a problem area for Jeffrey. I think I was eventually able to make some impression on him, but it required a lot of repetition and colorful teaching. What I mean is that, for example, I would do something like write the word 'cub,' have him say it, add an 'e,' then ask him to draw what he saw. Then we would repeat the words cub and cube, with me loudly moo-ing the long u. It was a little embarrassing, sitting in the yellow dollhouse chairs of the children's section of the library, both of us mooing over and over, but it worked and was honestly pretty fun. Next time, I think we'll practice this some more; I'll look online for some kid-friendly worksheets on vowel sounds.