According to Justin Douglas ’08, when a young kid from the Traverse Square residential community was asked about one of his neighbors, the University, his reply was straightforward: he felt unwanted on campus. This is a reality the Traverse Square after-school tutoring program hopes to change.
“There are times when the whole partnership between Wes and the Traverse Square community seems rocky at times [and] we can be there and serve as a bridge,” said Justin Douglas ’08, who is one of the coordinators of the program this year.
The program is comprised of 42 students, who enthusiastically make their way across High Street to be a small but significant part of the lives of about three-dozen children ranging from four to 14 years of age. About 21 of these tutors spend two hours a day, Monday through Thursday, with the youngsters.
“A lot of the kids are in second to fourth grades. We have more younger kids this year,” explained Mike Bolds ’08, who joined the program as a freshman and now helps run it.
“Our biggest purpose is to get their homework done,” said Brooke Richart ’08, another coordinator of the program who has been a tutor since her freshman year. But homework is not all that’s done when these tutors and kids get together. There are games, trips to the library or Broad Street Bookstore, and time spent swimming, among other outings.
The two hour-long session each day starts with a fun round of games played outside.
“The idea is to get the kids energized for the academic work,” said Ayesha Hoda ’08, one of the regular tutors who learned about the program through a class-related community project. “I loved it so much, I had to stay.”
The after-school program was started seven years ago, and it has undergone numerous revisions and constant improvement ever since.
“We all have been in different educational programs before and we have tried to pool our knowledge together,” Richart said.
One of the students’ aims has been to make the program as oriented to the specific needs of the kids as it can possibly be.
“Each kid has his own folder and we have grade-specific games to make it more tailored to individual kids,” said Hoda, who tutors for four hours each week.
For example, Hoda explained, if one of the kids is struggling with reading, then his tutor tries to plan activities that will help improve that deficient skill.
Tutors also want to foster a sense of community along the way. Besides the starting minutes of the sessions that are used for activities done together in a big circle, the kids and tutors form a final circle at the end to clean up.
“It is about sharing and having different activities,” Richart said. “The great thing about the program is that we can basically try to provide what they can’t get from school.”
Student leaders and other student members have equal footing in the program.
“This is an entirely student run program where we can have a direct relationship between Wesleyan and the Traverse Square residents,” Bolds said. “This is community service, but as partners.”
The semester started with two separate days of training for the tutors. After going over the basics on the first day, the second day was spent at Traverse Square, busy with role-play and enactments of various common situations that tend to come up while dealing with young kids.
“This year the tutor training was very well planned out, so that everyone was on the same page,” said Hoda.
Richart finds encouragement in the parents’ support. “We are able to provide a service for these parents,” she said.
While the kids are well behaved, according to Hoda, kids will be kids. They enjoy the games, but as for doing the homework, perhaps not so much. Yet for most members of this group, that’s a worthy sacrifice to make.
“Even though they can give you a hard time sometimes, they trust you,” Hoda said. “They might not always want to show it, but they appreciate it.”
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