More Adventures in Tutoring

Kid 1 was late yesterday, so I spent some time with Kid 3, a really cute and friendly little 5th grader. Unfortunately for her, she needed help with math, specifically dividing decimals. For the life of me, I could not figure out how to do the problems even though I knew she was getting them wrong. It's really embarrassing when an 11-year-old comes to you for help and you can't do her math homework. I ended up suggesting that we multiply the numerator in the problem by each of the multiple choice answers to find the right answer. Is that cheating? It's certainly not helping her learn, but at least she won't go to school and when the teacher asks why all her homework is wrong say it was the tutor's fault.

Meanwhile, I suspect Kid 1 is homophobic, as evidenced by a report I found cleaning out his backpack that said "Things I learned during summer vacation: George H.W. Bush is a [gay]", in slightly less 6th graderly fashion. Shouldn't the teacher do something about that?