I got fired yesterday.  No, no, no, not from my full-time gig as a children’s librarian: from a new tutoring job that I had taken on for this month.  I had agreed to tutor this student, who is going into the eighth grade at a school that specializes in Orton Gillingham, even though I had some reservations about my ability to help her.  My specialty is tutoring students using the Wilson Reading System, which is based upon Orton Gillingham, but differs in many practical ways from Orton Gillingham.

And the moment I arrived at the student’s house on Tuesday, I could see that the student had reservations, too.  It was abundantly clear from the start of that lesson that there was nothing I could do or be to win over this student.  Without a doubt, that lesson was the toughest one that I have ever taught.  Light humor didn’t work, being firm but fair didn’t work.  Not one of the three assignments that I gave in that hour interested the student.  As we got further into the hour, the student’s baseball cap came further and further down over her eyes, until I couldn’t see her face at all. 

I tried, but it was obvious this wasn’t going to work.  I sat down with the mother at the end of the lesson and told her that, in my opinion, her daughter didn’t want to be tutored.  The mother was very surprised, said she’d talk to her daughter and get back to me.  It was no shock to me when I got an email from the mother yesterday saying “thanks, but…”.

The moral of this tale?  These things can’t be forced.  This student probably needed a full summer break from school and learning, and nothing I could have done would have made her enjoy working with me.  I won’t take it personally.  Maybe.  🙂