Second Reflection

Brianna Tunggal

Tuesdays at 3:15

Taft Math Center

Ms. Brugos / Mr. McCullough

jessie.thomasbrugos@menloschool.org / casey.mccullough@menloschool.org

I’ve been a tutor at the Taft Math Center since last year and I’ve found it an incredibly rewarding experience thus far. 

Because I’ve been working with the kids over a long time period, I’ve seen their class subjects grow in difficulty.  For example, when I first started tutoring they were working on their multiplication tables, and now they’re learning about prime numbers.  The students that I’ve worked with who breezed through the homework problems back in November are now struggling a little more, and it takes more time to complete each problem.  Because the subjects are harder, they get stuck more often and I help them understand how to solve the problems.  Their student-teacher ratio is so high that it’d be extremely difficult for their teacher to address each and every single one of their kid’s needs, so many of the kids are still confused by the time it’s time to do homework.  It’s extremely gratifying when the kids take a concept that I taught them because they didn’t understand before and apply it to the next problem. 

Also, the kids seem to really appreciate the tutoring.  I was talking to Jennifer, the Taft student I usually work with, last week, and she was telling me that she was talking to her friends about how much homework she had.  Then she said, “but that’s okay because we have Menlo math today!”  It was a really cute moment and it made me feel like I was really making a difference.    

I think it’s also nice that we have as many Menlo tutors as we do, because the Taft teacher gets a break from handling all these kids at once.  They’re all so energetic (which makes it really fun when we play games) that it must be exhausting for the teacher to have to keep them under control by herself. 

I’ve also discovered that I enjoy teaching.  I’ve always liked explaining things to people (particularly math, so Taft is perfect), but I haven’t had that chance in a while and tutoring the Taft kids has helped me rediscover that.  I’m incredibly grateful for this eye-opening experience. 

Even though I’ve completed my 6 visits already, I’ve still been tutoring the kids and I plan to continue it next year as well.  Hopefully the 4^th graders that I’m tutoring now will continue to come to Menlo next year as 5^th graders so I can keep working with my group!