LeSSON REVIEW #  13B     December 6, 2000          2:45 PM- 8:30 PM

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                              Cleophas Mike McAlpin......Tutor

                                                            The Room

The students had to listen to yet another motivational lecture. This time, it dealt with a topic that came to me on the spur of the moment.

The Room. We are all in it together. The Middle and High School students and their teachers are in it. The parents are in it. I, as a Tutor, am in it. It is a room that deals with education. It is a room that has only one exit. That exit is to the outside world.

The students were told that the exit door will surely open for them one day. The door will open and High School will be over. Every student must exit, whether he or she has learned anything or not while in the Room. There is a lot of fear connected with exiting the Room if one is not ready to leave, and a lot of joy connected if one is fully prepared to leave. The most terrifying thing connected to the Room is that the stay there is extremely short! It seems only a fraction of a second from the time the room is entered to the time that it is exited.

Students that are from 12 to 17 years of age should make the very best time of it while in the Room. Do homework aggressively, cooperate with teachers, parents and tutors. Make "A's" and "B's". Do extra credit work. Stay focused on education and not so much as to the ways of the "teenage world". Sure, enjoy those teen years, but remember the time that you have to be in the Room is very short.

Colleges and Universities loom on the horizon when one exits the Room. Are you making plans to leave the Room and go to college? Are you truly doing all that you can to learn as much as you can while in the Room? Are you just sliding through High School with a "C" or "D" because of some childlike behavior that makes you think you are fooling somebody? Just remember, you will find out that life is extremely different when you leave High School and fooling people will be over for you.

I was asked one question by a very smart 9th grade teacher while I was in the Room at the Fairfield Industrial High School (Alabama) and it went like this...."Where will you be in 10 years"?

I am asking all of the students the same terrifying question.

Cleasena, Sheena, Jeremiah, Jarrell, Mathew, Cassandra, Joshua and James #2 sat at long tables in the Family Room and did their homework. (James #1 was upset because someone forgot to bring him to the Tutoring session.) They worked very hard with their Algebra, English and Science homework from their respective Middle and High Schools. I assisted them as they needed it.

Jarrell was shown "straight lines" again. That equation, y=mx + b, had slipped his 14-year old mind. We had graphed lines in a split second last year and input them into the Scientific Calculator for a check....countless times. Why had the very smart student forgot? What had transpired in his teenage life that had caused him to forget all about the slope-intercept formula for graphing those very simple straight line equations in his 9th grade Algebra book? Were we too far ahead of our time for teaching it to him two years ago? I don't think so. It took Jarrell only a few minutes to recall the slope, "m", as the tangent of a right triangle, capable of making graphing straight line problems a snap! The problem came with the manipulation of the equations into the slope intercept format. Jarrell was too hung up into "steps" instead of a direct approach to solving the problem. Case in point; solving a problem such as x-y = 3 had to be taken through several "steps" instead of simply saying that when a number or unknown is moved from one side of an equation to the other, simply change the sign of that number or unknown. That would simply the adding this to both sides of the equation to eliminate that. Our simple equation would reduce to x -3 = y  or y= x - 3, where "m" = 1/1, and "b" = -3. It is simple to describe the slope as "when the x goes there the y goes there." In our problem, all that Jarrell did was to set the "x" to zero and the "y" would equal to -3. From that point, the slope says that when "x" goes over "1" , the "y" goes up "1". The graphing of straight lines should take no longer than 10 seconds for the most learned of students. Jarrell was soon doing them in 5 seconds!

Jeremiah (12) took in the whole lecture, after he had showed us his "Student of the Month" award that he received from Roosevelt Middle School on yesterday (for the umpteenth time). James # 2 did his homework and a review of the multiplication tables. Cleasena read her book. Sheena did her English. Mathew drew his picture of the male reproduction system. Cassandra did her homework.

I interrupted the students when Paula (A Nurse Practitioner) came by. I asked Paula to lecture the students on her career as a nurse and she concurred. Paula told all of the students what it took to become a nurse and answered the many questions that they threw at her. Thank you, Paula for your excellent presentation.

Marie, Cleasena's mother, was in attendance and gave a synopsis of her career as a Postal Worker. She outlined the benefits associated with her job and the training that was required to land her the job.

Margaret, mother to Joshua, was in attendance and she assisted him with his Biology homework.

Eddie, father to Cassandra and Mathew (new students), discussed their grades in school with me and what had to be done to improve them. I told him that Cassandra and I had already begun our review of basic fractions. Mathew was next on the hit list.

Darnetta, mother to James #2, met with me for a few minutes and I  talked about James' writing abilities and how we might channel his energy into that. I also discussed how I had been able to teach him the "8" multiplication table by associating the numbers with writing about them. Simple and foolish stories such as " 7 of those stories cost 8 dollars each and I can buy 56 of them". The mental block that this young man had against learning his "time tables" is rapidly dissipating!

Chip, husband to Margaret, participated in our "perfect squares" drill as well as clock the other students on their ability to repeat the perfect square from 1-144, in record time. This is an excellent mental exercise that the students enjoyed immensely. Cleasena's time was 7 seconds, Jarrell's time was 7 seconds, and Chip's time was 7 seconds! On tomorrow, our Tutoring session will take us into the world of Chess. All of the students will learn to play (some have already been taught).

Gayle, my loving wife, busily prepared a meal of chicken and potato pancakes for the group. (Donated by Darnetta)

The Room had seen active participation in education by students, parents and volunteer tutors.

Tutoring ended....8:30 PM.

My neighbors must be accustomed to the noise by now. The noises that emanate from the Room are not the noises of a rap artists, but the noises from worthy Middle and High school students....... busily preparing themselves for a joyous exit...from the Room.