Before starting school, I forced my family to play school with me all the time. In kindergarten I was tested and asked to be moved to the second grade. I declined on the notion that it would impede my social development and I would only go the reading class with the older kids. In elementary and middle school, I was a peer tutor. In high school, most of my friends were books, but I found myself quite popular during the formation of study groups. People who never talked to me before would sit near me during tests. During my Associate’s Degree, I explored several possible majors and found myself in love with both sociology and philosophy as a means by which I would have the chance to understand as much as possible about the patterns of human thought.
At FSU, I was able to tutor for the Student Disabilities Service Center My students there ranged from those with serious learning difficulties to a broken writing hand for note taking assistance. While researching for the Social Science Data Center I learned how to conduct interviews to determine a client’s range of knowledge on a given subject. I traveled in Europe as an International Student and practiced sociocultural linguistics, my favorite hobby, by learning and teaching various linguistic expressions. After graduation, I qualified for MENSA membership, a social group open to the top two percent of IQ scores, of which I am still a member, though largely inactive.
I have been a freelance private tutor for over seven years and I have worked with local schools as well as with tutoring agencies. I received my Master’s Degree in Reading Education in December of 2007 as I feel that reading is a fundamental and foundational source of all other knowledge, regardless of the content of the information. As such, my tutoring interests and abilities are as far ranging as my experience. I have a love of language interpretation, making my talents suitable for nearly every subject area, with the exception of those involving mathematics.
I ascribe to the Empiricists’ view of learning as a Tabula Rasa, or blank slate. Anyone can learn anything if given the opportunity to create their knowledge base from scratch while including seemingly irrelevant personal experience memories to connect ideas and formulate new ones. I love teaching people to become impassioned about learning and I love showing people how to become good students. Tutoring has been my life’s calling ever since I started learning myself.