Lesson Learned: Education Is About More Than Good Grades

As a student, if I had a good report card my parents would let me order whatever I wanted at Dairy Queen, instead of the standard five Dilly Bars for $1 my family always got. While picking something from the big menu was exciting, I realized that as extravagant as banana splits sound, the bananas are a mushy nuisance that distracts from the ice cream.

I decided the smart kids could have them and I moved on with my mediocre grades and discounted Dilly Bar.

The past few years, I’ve been a tutor at the Guardian Catholic School. While I had some experience as a substitute teacher, I was hesitant to take on this volunteer role because I didn’t want to be the reason a struggling student slipped farther behind. In short — I didn’t want to fail.

I knew failure as a student. In third grade, my struggle with math began and it peaked when I failed ninth-grade algebra. I remember the pleading eyes of teachers and tutors after they would explain a lesson. It seemed like they believed if they stared at me long and hard enough, I would understand how to reduce a fraction or cross multiply or find the square root.

Instead, I would just nod at them with a weak, embarrassed smile; too self-conscious from their intense gazing to think of math at all.

Sister Susan Reineck who runs the afterschool tutoring program at Guardian is nothing like that. She’s soft-spoken and encouraging. I’ve watched her teach. She doesn’t rush students or shame them. She’s patient and calm, and starts where the students are; not where they should be.

I’ve benefited from her instruction on ways to approach teaching and am awed by how capable she is and how capable she makes others feel. I sometimes wonder if I would have struggled so much in math if I had someone as patient and resourceful as Sister Susan teaching me.

When I tutor, I try to be mindful of my own negative experiences. I don’t correct every mispronounced word. I try to come up with fun or creative ways to explain different meanings of words and the emotions they connotate. Almost always, I show her pictures of my pets or tell a funny story about my life. We talk about our families, her best friend, places she has visited, and where she wants to attend high school.

We write summaries of the pages we read, and for weeks we practiced a speech she was assigned in one of her classes — writing it, rewriting, and learning to project her soft-spoken voice to the back of the room where I sat cheering. Once, I read her a column I’d written that appeared in the newspaper and she seemed in awe.

I laughed at her sweet comments but secretly they made me feel proud — teaching me that encouragement is something we never outgrow.

On occasion, we must work on math. While it’s still a challenge, she and I solve the problems together — learning from each other in the best possible way (although occasionally I text my husband to confirm we are going in the right direction). Sometimes I still worry that I’m not good enough and that she could progress further under someone else’s guidance.

But then I remember that life isn’t only a pass or fail; it’s a bit of both. Besides, maybe we don’t need to be so afraid of failure.

Mistakes, whether in math or in life, are always our best teachers. It’s not that failing algebra made me understand it better, only that it helped me learn something far more useful — the importance of being kind to yourself and others when working on difficult problems. I may not have always figured out the unknown I was solving for, but I did learn what it wasn’t.

I learned our worth isn’t defined by how well we navigate academia or our careers or the maze of measuring up. Our lives have a predetermined value set by God that no math in the world can reduce or even quantify. When we honor the infinite value of that in our neighbors, our capacity to understand one another grows exponentially.

When compassion is part of the equation, the answers are no longer static. They carry on.

Years from now, if all I’ve taught this young girl is the importance of having someone at your side as you work out solutions, plug in different variables and ultimately find your own answer, then I will have done something far more important than hone her reading skills. However, if all she remembers is the lady with the silly stories and random pet pictures who showed up every week, simply because she believed in her value, then I still taught her something worthwhile. That’s got to earn me at least as much as a Dilly Bar.

Happy New School Year! ~ It seems whether we have children or grandchildren in school or not, we all feel the energy and excitement that comes with the transition of a new season or endeavor. This month’s column in The Florida Times-Union reminds us that life isn’t only a pass/fail experience – especially when it comes to compassion.

Teaching others their inherent value as children of God may solve more of the world’s problems than any other lesson. That’s my prayer for all of us during this new season — that we may know how much we are loved and cherished by God and ultimately, share that with others. 

If you want more information about volunteering to tutor at Guardian Catholic School, please let me know. There’s a waiting list of children who would love to learn from you. These kids fill me with such hope and who couldn’t use more of that? ~ Love, Lara