Tutoring at Canopy Scholars!
Since January of this year, I’ve been volunteering at an organization called Canopy Scholars as a tutor. I’ve had the opportunity to tutor students ranging from 2nd to 8th grade in various subjects like math, history, and English.
Canopy Scholars is dedicated toward providing high-quality tutoring services to the diverse student body in the Shoreline area, especially students who face some sort of racial or economic inequity. In doing so, Canopy narrows the opportunity gap experienced by these students and helps as many people as possible to reach their full academic potential.
As a private school student, I come from a position of privilege in that I’m able to receive a top-notch education every day, with ready access to various technologies, equpment, and other resources. Through my volunteering at Canopy, I’ve been able to leverage this privilege by supplementing the education of students who come from less privileged backgrounds. Every mind is equally bright, but the unfortunate truth is that some don’t receive the same opportunities as others, and that is what I strive to contradict at Canopy.
A session at Canopy starts off with a series of community-building exercises, where we solve riddles, answer ice-breaker questions, and play outside. Only after that do we start tutoring students, helping them with homework and ensuring they learn the necessary material to succeed in their classes.
After just four months at Canopy, I’ve already gained several memorable experiences. For one thing, I gained instant connections/friendships after my first day, where I was able to socialize with my students about topics other than schoolwork like our favorite video games! To this day, I even keep in touch with one of my students outside of Canopy. Another memorable experience was teaching algebra to one of my students. He initially made some minor errors like forgetting a negative sign, but after I walked him through them, he solved all the subsequent problems flawlessly! A small moment like this showed me that everybody at Canopy is eager and willing to engage themselves in learning!
