Why New Septembers?

Human beings are born with a desire and ability to learn. My job in supporting parents and kids is to draw out that natural interest in and capacity for learning. Families who work with me find that learning transforms from something to struggle with into an adventure - something to celebrate. Kids who have resisted reading turn into book lovers. Parents who dread the day when their child begins algebra find that it’s not as bad as they thought, sometimes even fun to help with. Kids who thought they couldn’t write find poetry in their fingers. Teenagers who've spent years resisting find that learning gives them access to things they actually want. Parents find ways of communicating with teachers that enhance their child’s experience at school.

These are the kinds of things I mean when I talk about true success.

Part of my job is to make sure that learning has some connection to things that the learner genuinely cares about, whether it’s animals or art or fixing things or chemistry or playing basketball. If you ask your child what she did in tutoring today, you're likely to hear something like "I practiced learning context clues in an article about the World Series," or "I worked on a draft of my letter requesting a new swingset for our playground.” I also insist on keeping a sense of humor about things, so sometimes your child might come home with a silly way to remember the multiplication facts. That's all part of the process of joyful learning.