Volunteer Tutor: It’s NOT JUST About Getting Better Grades!

By Jim Wambach | September 11, 2018

Perspectives article by Jim Wambach, Executive Director

“When educating the minds of our youth, we must not forget to educate their hearts.”       ~Dalai Lama

Dear Children Rising Community,

As you can see from the personal stories we have shared throughout the year, our programs are not just about helping children develop key reading, math and life skills. Our programs offer children hope and the ability to escape the vicious cycle of poverty and violence.

Children Rising’s volunteer tutor and mentor programs foster an important one-to-one relationship that develops between a child and a caring adult. This relationship, based on trust and reliability, is transformative. This relationship is as much about caring and “being there” as it is about learning to read or developing math skills. It proves to a child that he or she truly matters and is important. 

One-to-one volunteer tutors not only help a child learn reading or math skills. They develop a caring, transformative relationship that proves to a child that they are truly important and matter.

This in turn builds a child’s self-confidence and renews energy that fuels his or her desire to learn. When that happens, limitations to learning dissolve and a transformational miracle begins to unfold.

This is not just about helping children get better grades – it is about the transformative power of relationship!

For many of us when we think of tutoring, we may think of the extra support it takes to get a student from a “B” to an “A.” Tutoring may seem like a luxury, a “nice to have” for the child that receives the tutoring. But for the children we serve, tutoring means so much more than that.

We know in schools just a few miles away from each other in our community, there is a world of difference in student’s opportunities and prospects. We know 25-50% of the children in low-income neighborhood schools will experience trauma from adverse childhood events. We also know that “It is crystal clear that relationships are the counterpoint to traumatic stress in childhood.” Dr. Bruce Perry (Senior Fellow of the Child Trauma Academy in Houston, Texas)

This school year, we need your help as we expand our efforts to support more children. Of the 4,000 OUSD 3rd graders that just began school, as many as 1,800 will test substantially below grade level in math and reading at the end of the school year.

Becoming a volunteer tutor or mentor actually opens up the opportunity to develop an important, life-changing relationship with a child. Please invite your friends, neighbors and co-workers to join us—they might just find that their life is changed too! Because this is not just about helping children get better grades – it is about the transformative power of relationship!

YES, I CAN help transform a child’s life. Let’s talk!

 I want to be a tutor or mentor this school year. Tell me more!

 I want help fund Children Rising tutoring and mentoring programs.