One-On-One Tutoring

At first glance, the scene at Pilgrim Elementary School’s playground looks unremarkable. It’s after school on a beautiful December day, and a deep blue Houston sky towers over groups of children at play. Three boys are throwing a Frisbee, while a larger group chases a soccer ball across a field. At the other end of the playground, a handful of girls plays Red Rover. One group of girls isn’t competing at all. Perched atop the monkey bars, they’re simply hanging out.

But if you look closer, you see that this isn’t a typical group of youngsters. Some of the “kids” chasing soccer balls, floating Frisbees, and, yes, hanging out on the monkey bars, are Rice undergraduates. Tall, lanky Jeb Britt, a junior mechanical engineering major, wearing his orange “Spontaneous Human Compassion” T-shirt, is trying to kick a soccer ball around a fourth-grader. Senior economics major Peter Huckfeldt is the rather expert-looking Frisbee flinger. They’re among the 15 Rice undergraduates who come to Pilgrim every Monday afternoon as part of the One-on-One Tutoring Program of the Youth Achievement Foundation.

The Rice undergraduates—and other mentors as well, including students from the University of Houston, professionals, and even a Rice physics professor, Dr. Pablo Yepes—always begin their weekly visit with a play session with their students, followed by snack and chat time, then by the actual academic tutoring. The weekly agenda always closes with “character formation.”

For Britt, it’s the play time that does the children the most good. “You can actually do more mentoring on the playground,” he says. “You can teach teamwork.” About the child that he has been mentoring since last year, Britt says, “We play the same stuff as last year, soccer and basketball. But it’s amazing to see how much better he’s gotten. You can’t believe it’s the same kid.”

Now a very happy looking fourth-grade girl, Susanna, comes out of the school and finds her personal mentor, Elisheva Danan. Susanna hooks her arms through Danan’s and begins whispering her most personal secrets to the senior anthropology major and premed student. Danan, who is the Rice program coordinator for the tutoring sessions, listens to Susanna, whispers something back, then calls the kids and tutors to come into the school cafeteria for the tutoring session.

Inside the cafeteria, the students have their juice and cookies while their mentors prepare to begin the day’s work. The program coordinators hope to provide true one-on-one relationships, but unfortunately, that isn’t possible. There are 25 mentors signed up for the 38 kids, and today, the mentors are even more short-handed because of various tutor absences due to illness.

Peter Huckfeldt has two fourth-grade boys, John and Jerry. John is his regular student, and they have a relaxed rapport. John seems like a fairly serious young scholar, or at any rate he does with Huckfeldt sitting beside him, preparing to go over his math homework. But Jerry’s a bit of a cutup, ready to dart off in search of another juice pack if Huckfeldt isn’t vigilant.

Britt has four rambunctious boys with him. Clearly, he’s not going to get any one-on-one work done, so he launches into an impromptu spelling bee. Britt is frustrated that he can’t do the one-on-one work, but the spelling competition works well as the boys try to outdo one another.
At the same time, however, Danan and her student, Susanna, sit engrossed in both their work and their relationship. Susanna, who obviously was in need of a mentor, has made great progress in the year-plus that she’s worked with Danan. “Her dad is back in Honduras, and her mom works several jobs,” Danan says. Susanna’s mother works with her at home as much as she can, considering her demanding schedule, but often it’s not enough.

“When we first started working together,” Danan says, “Susanna had lots of trouble with English, especially with spelling. But now she’s entering spelling bees.” The girl beams in Danan’s presence and is eager to share her work. Like the other tutors and students, Danan and Susanna exchange gentle high-fives when Susanna completes a homework assignment.

Among students at Pilgrim, a largely Hispanic school near the Galleria, Susanna’s home life isn’t uniquely difficult. Maritza Roman, Houston director for the Youth Achievement Foundation and Walgreen’s One-on-One Tutoring Program, says that when she asks potential mentors if they are up for the job, her standard question is, “Are you willing to help a child who doesn’t have anything in life?”

According to Roman, the Youth Achievement Foundation and its tutoring program began in Boston around 30 years ago. The Houston program began in 1995, shut down for a time, then re-started in 1997. They’ve been at Pilgrim for three years. The Youth Achievement Foundation made its Rice connection because one of its board members, J. L. Marti, was a postgraduate student at Rice. Roman asked him about how to approach Rice, and he suggested going to the Community Involvement Center, which connected Roman with the undergraduate who became Rice’s first student leader, Liora Danan—Elisheva’s older sister. Liora Danan recruited the first set of Rice mentors, which includes some undergraduates who are still with the program, such as Britt, who, next year, will become the program coordinator.

Pilgrim’s faculty and parents are extremely happy with the program. “It’s fabulous,” says assistant principal Kristina Davis-Troutman. “Parents are always trying to get their kids in. And the kids love their mentors. All week they ask me, ‘When are they coming? When are they coming?’” Davis-Troutman sees improvement in her students, mostly in terms of behavior. “Even children who we have trouble with during the day behave beautifully here.”

Roman attributes the behavior gains in part to the program’s emphasis on character. “Lots of programs increase academic skills,” she says. “We do that too, but we also do character formation. Our philosophy is, first we become friends with the children, then we teach them skills and values.”

The teaching of values comes at the end of the session. The boys and girls separate, and one mentor addresses each group. On this day, freshman Jamie Linares talks to the girls about the week’s topic, respecting one’s parents.

Linares, who began the day’s activities perched on the monkey bars, now leads the girls in a discussion of why parents should be respected. She gives them some reasons: “They give us life,” and “They love us more than anybody else.” When she asks how children can show parental respect, hands shoot up. “You can do good in school,” says one girl. “Don’t talk back to them,” offers another. Linares offers the girls advice. “When they ask you how your day was, really tell them what happened to you. And remember their birthdays and anniversaries.”

As the session ends, the students fill out goal sheets while their mentors look on, setting two goals for the upcoming week: one academic, one personal. The academic goal might be to complete a specific homework assignment early. The personal goal could be a promise to help with the dishes at home. The child takes the goal sheet home, and the parent is supposed to affirm that he or she did in fact get those dishes done.

It’s little wonder that the parents who show up at the end of the two-hour session look so pleased with the mentors’ work. Or that the students shout out such fervent see-you-next-weeks to their tutors before dashing out of the school.

—David Theis