Like fwtxmom, few of my classmates appreciated formal tutoring. Oh, sure-- they mostly enjoyed having me as a member of their GROUP for group work. More than a few wanted to sit close to me-- for a not-terribly popular kid, there sure was a lot of jostling for those five seats to the sides and behind me. (Not that I'm cynical or anything, but I still remember being chewed out by a total queen Bee in junior high for not being more accommodating during a quiz. Chutzpah, much?) Of course on the plus side, I became pretty convinced that those kids had little of any authenticity to offer me to begin with, and that I was actually better off WITHOUT them.
Having the teacher tell them to listen to me? No way, and it wouldn't have helped anyway since my learning style was so reading and writing intensive. (Again, like fwtxmom.) I do recall being sent to be a 'reading buddy' or some such thing to the Kindy classrooms as a 4th-6th grader, though.
Many of my K-12 teachers eyed me with avaricious, poorly-concealed GLEE once they figured out that I knew how to run a large-batch photocopier and replace both ink
and toner in a hand-crank mimeograph before I was eight. (Teacher's kid, here.) I could also fix most problems with overhead projectors and reel-to-reel projectors and recorders.
Yeah. I spent a lot of time at the office making copies, collating (before run-of-the-mill copiers did that) and generally being actually useful. I similarly enjoyed being away from the classroom.
I was also a VERY fast grader with a key-- and accurate. So I graded papers for teachers starting in about fourth grade. I'd been doing my mom's since I was six.
My favorite of those jobs was filing for the high school band program, though-- LOVED doing that. Just me and all the sheet music in a big walk-in storage closet. What a lovely island of relative peace each morning.
