Almost a Year Later
About a year ago, I announced on this blog that Katie and I were expecting a little girl. Well, that little girl is almost ten months old, is cruising and clapping, is “eating” solid foods (which all end up on her lap), and is trying so hard to say “doggy”. I like to remind her that she’s kind and brave and creative and loving and hardworking.
Brave is a big one if you think about it because everything she does is brand new to her. Try to stand? Never done it before and yet she made it for 20 seconds or so while holding a full water bottle in her two tiny hands. Everything she attempts is an adventure, and we love how self-motivated she is. She doesn’t stand or cruise or clap or anything for us. She does it because, I can already tell, she’s an adventurous and brave little girl.
So why is this relevant? First of all, the few people who read this have followed the TriTutoring journey and know how passionate I am about what we do and how we do it. Our number one goal is to help raise student confidence. Learning is brave, asking for help is brave, and trying new things is brave. Our students are brave.
There is a reason I’ve tried to stay away from calling Hailey “smart” in my little affirmations, though I did at first. You can tell me I’m such a millennial parent, but I don’t take that as an insult. Hailey is smart because she is brave and hardworking and all of these other things. Smart is the side effect, not the trait that defines her.
There will be things in life that are hard for her. She will get a bad grade at some point and wonder how smart she really is. In those moments, I hope she is able to dig deep and remember that she will still work hard and try new things and figure it out, even if that means asking for help.
Some of TriTutoring’s students have asked for tutoring, while others have been prompted by a parent or teacher. Asking for help and even just accepting help is brave and shows a willingness to admit you aren’t great at something on your own. I hope TriTutoring tutors always display compassion that reminds students that you won’t always be great at everything by yourself. That’s why we are here. The student is brave and hardworking. We are just there to help them convert those awesome traits into an understanding of the material. So, if a kiddo is tutored, I hope we all give them a round of applause because, high or low grade, they are brave.