Norman, then Laura gets introspective

too hot to write a long entry. lol. But I'm soooo proud of myself! I worked with Norman today (it was my tutoring day thing). And 3 or 4 years ago, both of Norman's parents were killed in a car accident. Norman was unscathed, his siblings were both hurt. And now he lives with his grandmother, I think. :-/ It's scary. Anyway, Norman doesn't open up really well, nor does he get down to work well. He has some problems, and who can blame him? One time, I think 2 weeks ago (unless that was vacation--the time before last that I tutored) Norman wouldn't get down to work, or even sit down. He was just futzing with things and buzzing around and stuff. And I went over a couple times, like "What should you be doing?" and "Don't you think you should be sitting down?" and stuff like that, and he completely ignored me, like I'd never spoken to him. So I was a little bit worried when Mrs. Roger put me with him (we had very few kids today, and all 4 of us came--me, sue, meg, and jenny, so we worked one on one with the kids) but I went over and stuff. I started out by suggesting that maybe he should change the ones that are written horizontally to vertically (I didn't say it like that) because I still have to do that. He took my advice, but part of me thinks that maybe he just did it to make me feel better--because he did all the work in his head!! There were times when I wanted to write things down, and he didn't need to! I was sooo impressed, and I told him so ^_^ (this was after he'd done a lot like that, not just the first problem, fyi) and then he kinda opened up to me. . . I think I heard the first thing he's ever said to me today! (I mean, it was the first time I'd heard his voice) And it was "I'm not so good at division." And I was saying that it was tricky, cos you gotta go backwards, and you can't see multiplication and division like you can see addition and subtraction, and then we were comparing addition to multiplication and subtraction to division, which is how I've always thought of them in my head (cos mult is easier than division and addition is easier than subtraction) so it was cool that he thought the same thing, and he got 18 done in the time we had, which is really good, especially since last time he didn't even get started until the last 5 minutes before we left!! I was so surprised when he just got right down to work, and he did really well. And it was cool. And I'm really bad with kids, but I think Mrs. Roger said she put me with him because he's quiet and I'm quiet--most of the time I'd just watch him work, and say something if he seemed to have a problem, and because I already knew his story (having told her before that he was giving me problems. . . well, not me, but that he wasn't working) (and then she explained).

Anyway. It was cool, and I felt good. I also felt relieved because he actually knows more than it looks like, although he could still use some help. which he doesn't get at home. it's sad.

oh, I forgot to mention--he should talk more, because he's got a cute little voice! and she was explaining square numbers to everyone, and he knew quite a lot--he was doing very well, but the other kids were loud and shouted out the answers so she didn't know (unless she'd called on him). So I told her afterwards that he knew more, because I was sitting next to him and heard. ^_^

So I'm impressed with myself and I'm impressed with Norman.

( this is a little bit long, so I cut it just in case :D )