Students Tutoring Students
By Anne Kim
Seattle Times staff reporter
Ben Pitasky was dressed for the summer. Wearing flip-flops, shorts and a baseball cap, the 17-year-old Skyline High School student looked ready to tackle a morning of lounging around in the park. Instead, he was at Issaquah High School Thursday to tutor students who failed the math section of the state's WASL exam last April.
"I didn't think I'd be doing that during the summer," he said. But he and eight other Skyline High School students spent this past week tutoring more than 20 students from Skyline, Liberty and Issaquah high schools to prep them to retake the math section of the WASL on Tuesday.
The students being tutored barely missed passing the exam and just need an extra boost, said Sara Niegowski, Issaquah School District spokeswoman.
Nominated by their math teachers, tutors volunteered to help.
"Budgets are just stretched so thin, this was a novel way to really connect students" and give them individual attention, Niegowski said about the student-to-student tutoring.
In a "kamikaze blitz" of tutoring, students who signed up for the class went to one of two three-hour-long tutoring sessions each day this week, Niegowski said.
Getting help from students their own age makes a difference, said Amie Karkainen, a math teacher at Skyline High School who oversaw the class.
"They can explain things in ways that sometimes teachers can't," Karkainen said.
With similar interests and ideas, it's easier to communicate, agreed Ryu Sikora, a senior at Skyline, who planned to tutor about 20 hours this week.
"It's easier to ask questions," said Sarah Patrick, a junior at Issaquah High School who missed passing the math section of the exam by just two points.
Patrick said she was nervous about retaking the exam, but after the tutoring sessions she feels less nervous.
And with no required homework to take home or grades, there's less pressure, some tutors said.
Students just really want to learn and pass the test, said Sikora.
The students learned their test scores in mid-June and had a little more than a month to prep after school ended on June 26, she said.
The one-week math tutorial is part of a larger summer WASL prep program in the district to help students who were close to passing the math, reading and writing sections of the exam retake the exam.
And while the students who came for the tutoring were driven by their hopes to pass the WASL, the tutors simply wanted to help.
Sikora had planned to look for a summer job after returning home earlier this week from a trip to Japan to see family, but opted to tutor instead.
"This just feels a lot more fulfilling," Sikora said.
But will the students pass?
The tutors certainly think so.
"They can absolutely pass this test," Sikora said.
Tutor Kimberly Choi, a Skyline senior, was equally confident as she worked with a student. "You're going to rock that math," she told the student.
Anne Kim: 206-464-2591 or akim@seattletimes.com
posted by Mike at 5:13 AM
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