Tutor stuns schoolteachers by turning "problem children" into avid learners

My name is Teresita.

After living in the United States for 25 years, I came back to Costa Rica with a lot of dreams about helping and creating a better life in my town. I found out that there were a lot of problems in the education system, with a lot of desperate parents trying to find somebody who could give extra classes to their children so they could pass the school year, and many students who did not have any interest in learning.

I became a licensed Applied Scholastics tutor, working from my house, but then I saw the necessity for getting directly involved with the public school in my town.

What I saw when I did that, was simply sad.

Children had a lot trouble learning how to read and write. There were ‘specialized’ teachers assigned to tutoring kids with learning disabilities. But these teachers were failing at getting them out of that condition. Learning level in general was still very poor even among students without learning disabilities, and from my observation the teachers seemed to be overwhelmed by the ‘fact’ that there was no solution for this mess.

So I chose 2 students who were basically learning nothing at all, and I started doing the learning drills with them that I had learned during my Applied Scholastics training, while their teacher observed. After 2 weeks, they were able to learn how to read and write. Their teacher, having witnessed this enormous improvement, was thrilled to actually see that there is a solution.

The school faculty are now coming to me on a regular basis, clamoring for help to implement workable solutions for effective learning in their classrooms.

I did some simple word clearing with another student, while another teacher observed, and she was amazed to see how a reluctant and “slow” student, after getting a firm grasp of the definitions of a few key words, was laughing and wanting to learn more.

The support that I get from Applied Scholastics gives me the confidence to continue helping, and allows me to see the possibility of creating a major change in the education system.