Robert

Certified Tutor

I can remember struggling so much in school, and that's why I'm so passionate about helping students succeed. It seems no matter how many tutors my parents hired, I had a mental block to learning most anything I didn't find engaging, which included most everything that was offered in school; especially math!
When I went to college at age 17, I was most interested in the experience of being on my own and not necessarily preparing for a job. I naively started in pre-med, thinking that helping people with their medical problems (which I had experienced) would be fun. I quickly realized that I'd never make it! So I happened upon anthropology and psychology, which fascinated me. I had also been interested in history and pursued that topic, but struggled with all the reading of books by authors who wrote in such a boring manner that I found it difficult to focus. I finally ended up with a bachelor's degree in teaching social studies in secondary education. I taught grades 7-12 on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation in Central Idaho, where I had worked for the Univerity of Idaho as an archaeologist; and my plan was to continue that work during the summers and teach the rest of the year.
Archaeology brought me to Montana, where my wife and I worked in the field studying prehistoric Indian cultures, but it was difficult getting a job teaching social studies in the secondary schools at the time. We moved to Helena because we fell in love with the small, historic community and it's lovely setting in a broad valley with lakes and streams, surrounded by mountains.
Finding it difficult to find teaching jobs, I accepted a job designing business and computer forms for a large corporation; something I thought I would never do! I enjoyed their training, the design process, and working with clients. But after a couple of years, decided that I could serve my clientele better if I worked for myself; so I quit and started my own business doing the same thing but expanding the design services to other forms of printing. At the time, the personal computer business was booming and businesses needed my services. So the business expanded, my wife and I started a retail home furnishings store, and we happily raised our family.
When my own children entered school, I realized how much I missed teaching. I returned to college, this time in my mid-30's, and found (much to my surprise) classes to be fascinating and fun. I attended Carroll College part-time to update my qualifications to teach social studies, but added classes that would qualify me to teach all subjects in elementary school, special education, and Montessori Education. With these new certifications (and a combined 12 years in college), I quickly obtained my dream-job - teaching fourth graders at the neighborhood elementary school where my children attended and which had a fantastic staff!
While I needed to retire recently for health reasons, I still look forward to help students learn. I recognize how difficult learning can be; more so now than when I was young because there are so many distractions in today's world. But we know so much more now about learning and teaching. There are so many more interesting ways to learn and teach, and the key is making it all relevant - how will knowing something help us in our daily lives. Sometimes, that's a question that can damage our ability to see any point in learning.
So, that's our challenge - TO FIND MEANING. Why should we have to learn all these things and why do we do the things we do? These questions make more sense the older we become and there are some basic things we must know before those questions even make sense. But we should always have a goal to help us make sense of our learning and the actions we take.
So I think that learning must be conceptual, which means that we should be able to show, to draw, to write about, and to make sense of what we learn. If I have two cookies and I add another 3 cookies to my stash, I'll have 5 cookies altogether, and I can show that. The Civil War was fought because of so many things we can identify that were going on in our nation for so long, that many people's lives weren't worth living anymore. Did that war make any sense? Definitely not! War never does. But it did open our eyes to changes that were necessary to improve people's lives that we're still working on today, 150 years later. And as intelligent animals, we should constantly be striving to make our world a better place. That knowledge can help; just as the knowledge of how many cookies you now have helps you figure out basic things we do everyday. Learning is fascinating, and it helps us everyday for as long as we live. It also helps us appreciate so much more in life; and while learning must have meaning, learning also gives us meaning in this enormous world of ours!