Tutors at MTA are recruited to work one-on-one with students, coach students in the completion of homework, and classroom assignment. We coordinate and rearrange our schedules to help with classroom objectives set by their regular teacher and even go beyond expectations. Not only are our students are taught learning skills, they learn through observation how to civilly behave. We have the best interest of our students in mind and motivate them to become champions of academic success, independent learners, and ready to assist their peers.
Elementary level students arriving from refugee camps in Africa experience culture shock when they are brought into the U.S. Often they have left communities destabilized by daily violence, where adequate food and nutrition and drinking water are not available, where their schools have been closed and they have not been taught basic reading and writing skills and have no study skills. They are placed in U.S. schools where they are learning the English language (often returning home where only their native language is used) as well as learning how to be a student in an unfamiliar setting. As children they do not have access to U.S. role models or guides to help them navigate a new culture.
These children begin school as disadvantaged students and often remain under achievers. In addition to being unable to succeed academically these students become vulnerable to the school to prison pipeline. By the time they reach middle school they are aware of their disadvantage and often act out inappropriately because they have not been taught appropriate behavior skills in a new culture. We want our students to become successful achieving citizens rather than failures who become a burden to society.
Mothers Tutoring Academy is a non-profit after-school institution founded on the tenants of school bylaws of the Minnesota State. It is a co-educational where students of different genders sit and study together, inclusive school for all races and ethnicity.
However, it is expected the majority of the student body will constitute of East African recent immigrants. Like other immigrants before it, these wave of new arrivals met difficulties of cultural and language among other barriers. As result of these constraints, these communities became quasi ignorant of the system of education and other impeding challenges related to the new environment they came into. This group feels neglected and humiliated more especially by the youth and school age kids. Thus, school drop outs and all sorts of gangs became the apparent conclusion.
Currently, Mothers Tutoring offers tutoring services for a wide variety of subjects including math, science, and reading, and for mixed grade levels. But it is planned in the future to mainly accept students in the pre-k and elementary grade levels. Focus will be made to build students from the very base up and in their early instructional childhood years.
Mothers Tutoring already started providing services such as consultations, assessment testing, and one‐on‐ one or small group tutoring sessions, tests reviews, and studies skills.
Although the primary focus of Mothers Tutoring will always be on increasing the students’ math, science, and reading proficiency in an environment that also encourages the development of social skills, confidence, and enthusiasm for learning, on the other hand, it will also constitute an outreach site for parents and community as an information center. Mothers Tutoring Academy in due course will work to increase parent involvement at the tutoring center.
For example, parents will learn about their child’s curriculum and how to supplement what their child learns through learning activities parents encouraged to initiate at home.
It is in the plan of the Mothers Tutoring to start early on the process to reach out to families and the community at large, and provide empowerment strategies for individual families and entire communities. Mothers Tutoring project will strive to provide necessary and valuable literacy training to parents, as well as a stimulating and supportive environment, by establishing strong links between the after-school tutoring activities, the schools and communities, and in particularly with other adult learning centers.
