Tutors proposal
Seeing the article from Dec. 7, “Schools nationwide confront ‘off the rails’ numbers of failing grades,” brought up a lot of concerns and worry for me regarding the future of our students and citizens moving forward in this post-pandemic world, though with that concern and worry a solution came to mind that I felt I should share.
Teachers need more help than ever now, which is why I propose a college-credit and/or volunteer-based virtual tutoring program.
Educators are facing unprecedented challenges in keeping pupils focused and engaged in learning through remote education. Teachers don’t have the resources or time to teach the material while also catering to those who need extra help. At the same time, students feel nervous to express their lack of understanding, and many parents aren’t available to bridge the gap under current circumstances.
That’s why I think virtual tutors would be the perfect solution to bridge that gap over the next year or so for us.
Here’s what I’m thinking: We create some sort of college credit or credit hours at Hawaii Community College and University of Hawaii for students working toward degrees in the fields of social work, teaching and the like. Each college student gets assigned five to 10 elementary or high school students to tutor, and beyond tutoring them, they can act as advocates — being a more personal connection to their education that can communicate to the pupils’ parents and teachers their specific needs or concerns.
The tutor would meet remotely with each student individually a few times a week to provide them with extra help or talk about any struggles they’ve been facing. This would be especially beneficial throughout this upcoming year to help students who have missed out on key concepts due to this unprecedented year in education. It would be a great way for the college students to get hands-on experience, not only with teaching, but also with problem-solving student-based issues.
It would also help younger students to catch up on their understanding, all-the-while taking stress off of the teachers giving them more time to allocate to introducing new material.
Kelly (Amy) Black
Keaau
No to casino plan
I don’t understand who or why it would be suggested to bring gambling to Hawaii again (Tribune-Herald, Dec. 17).
It just doesn’t make sense to me to add a problem to a problem we already have.
Businesses have closed, people lost their jobs, and instead of fixing a problem, we’re making one.
We have a virus to battle and to conquer, so let’s all work together and focus on making things better in a positive way.
Lynise Tarring
Hilo
