Once in a Tutor(life)time

This week's tutoring was totally different than any of the previous weeks; I went on Tuesday, swapping times with another tutor per scheduling conflicts. She is placed in the family center (I usually work the library) and Warner (he staffs the family center for tutoring) was not on campus to open it for us. So, the dorm staff member sent all the young men who would have been in the family center back to their dorm. We were a bit disappointed, because when this has happened in the past the students have all congregated in the library, or we've opened another room in the building. After fifteen minutes of chatting with some other students I hadn't seen since the first weeks of tutoring, Anna proposed that we take math worksheets to the dorm so the students weren't missing out on a study hour, and so they had the chance to finish the worksheets to be entered in a drawing for a trip to the Blazer's game. It is very rare for tutors to see much of the campus outside of the library or family center, most of all the residence buildings. So, I was trying to hide my excitement, but Liz called me out pretty quickly about being "antsy about something." "Well, I'm excited!" I said. I figured I'd never see the dorms, and I've been curious to see what I hear so much about. Another detail is that this particular dorm is where the students who are on restriction for too many write-ups are housed. Some spend a lot of the year living there, and others are moved throughout the trimesters. They're "the toughies," the students that many tutors are intimidated or frustrated by, and sometimes are right on the edge of being sent home for behavior and an apparent lack of academic performance. Right up my alley, really.

It ended up being one of the best evenings I've had at Chemawa. We worked with a very tight-knit group of young men in the common room. They're loud, kind of obnoxious, highly inappropriate, and absolutely fascinating. I plopped down between two of them, upper classmen that were disinterested and determined not to engage me. When I squeezed in between them I got a little bit of a reaction, but not much. I said hello and explained that I had a skill for making things awkward, and I'd be happy to help with any math questions. A bit of a chuckle, but they had mostly decided to ignore me. The details aren't important, but I ended up having an encouraging conversation with "J," we'll call him. At one of the rowdiest points in the evening he looked at me and said, "Damn Indians, right?" I said, "No, that's actually not what I was thinking at all. But, I understand why you'd expect that from me." We talked a lot after that about my thoughts on race, his thoughts on race, his experiences living on and off the reservation... He's from North Dakota, and spent the first 10 or so years on a reservation, and now he's living in the city. He went to public schools all through middle school, but has a brother and several cousins at Chemawa. He said he has a really hard time with white people in general at home, and being at Chemawa is a relief for him. It's not the reservation (which he didn't enjoy), but it's a place for community with native people. He shared that he's been on probation a lot, and is usually frustrated with the tutors. He very candidly admitted that he wrote me off before I'd said a word to him, and he didn't expect me to stick around after the "Damn those Indians" comment. It was a humbling conversation. We discussed inclusive and hostile language (there was a lot of homophobic and discriminatory "humor" happening in the room), how lighter-skinned natives are treated at Chemawa, what it's like being native in a majority white city... Holy cow, no?! In the meantime, he completed an entire math worksheet with relative ease. Ironically, he's on academic probation because of a math class. He said he's kind of given up on formal education and doesn't feel very motivated. That's another story in itself...

Again, I think I really want to work with high school students, whether it be teaching or mentoring or tutoring or coaching... young people are so exciting and can be absolutely surprising. If I had all the time in the world, I'd be working with J on a project of his own, something that he's interested in and feels is worth his time. There are ways for him to learn what he "needs" to know and engage something more personal and relevant to his life, and I understand that boarding school might not cut it. I also appreciate his willingness to discuss race relations with me. He risked a lot more in sharing with me than I did in sharing with him.