Why I Like to Tutor

Most every Thursday during the school year I spend two hours at St. Andrew Nativity School tutoring middle school students.  I always go thinking that I could get a lot of "my own" writing and reading done with that time.  I always leave happy that I came.


I like tutoring at St. Andrew for two reasons.


First, it is an amazing school.  The teachers are very committed to the students and have very high standards (in every respect) for them.  The students are from relatively low-income families and seem uniformly pleased to be at such a fine school.  They tend to work very hard and to take their studies very seriously.  It is a good place to be.


Second, I can tell that the students value my presence.  I am not a great tutor, and some days I do not even approach average.  Despite having written six books,  am often confused by rules of grammar and terms like "subordinate clause."  I do not always understand the steps that the students are expected to take in math.  Many of them know Catholic theology better than I do.  Sometimes the students have to explain the assignments to me.  But I can tell that my being there means something to them, in part because I insist on telling them the same thing that I try to tell my university students and my son: this is hard, but you can do it.  I think that they can tell that I respect them and care about them.


Much of life is complicated.  It is not always clear what the best, the ethical, the loving and wise thing to do is.  But it is very seldom a bad idea to spend time trying to help a child.  I strongly believe that this is one of our main reasons for existing.

Absent-Minded or Engaged Professors?

I recently put together, with the help of families and friends, a video designed to humanize the image I project to students: See the video.  The video opens with my explaining that I was about to give a long-winded speech on the usefulness of history but realized that I could instead just interview family and friends who could speak at great length and eloquence about how blessed they have been to know someone with a Ph.D. in history.


Of course the interviews don't go exactly as planned.  My wife defers to our dog, who chases his tail.  My son stares off into space or at his computer or cell phone for a couple of minutes, then says, "I can't think of anything."  The manager of the soccer team I play keeper for says he had hoped that someone with a Ph.D. in history would learn from his mistakes, but it hasn't really worked out that way--though perhaps the three decades of academic study "keeps him calm."  And so forth.  Then I come back on screen and pontificate for awhile about how history is useful.


I like the humorous and earnest mix because too many students (if not my family and friends) take professors too seriously.  It's often assumed that we spend all of our time pondering imponderables, not dealing with spouses and offspring who think we are full of baloney.  It's the interaction of academic or intellectual study with real-life relationships, I think, that offers all of us our best chance at wisdom and insight.  Knowledge entails going into the world, not retiring from it.

"What is Africa to Me?" or "What is Africa?"

One of the most quoted lines about Africa comes from Countee Cullen's lyrical and classic Harlem Renaissance poem, "Heritage," in which he asks: "What is Africa to me?"  This has been an especially poignant question for black Americans, of course, but it's also one that many white Americans have pondered.

After turning over this question myself for some time, from both personal and academic angles, it has occurred to me that a much better question is simply: What is Africa?

Let me explain.  When Americans approach Africa, we almost always do so not only with a lot of preconceptions and stereotypes, but also with deeply felt and highly personal needs.  We travel to Africa looking to fill some sort of hole in our own lives.  We go looking for authenticity or culture or an exotic experience or roots or home or Eden or to be a hero.  Very seldom are we happy with what we find, because very seldom do we find precisely what we wanted to find.

If we instead approached Africa--and the rest of our travels, actual and imaginary--with a sense of openness, with respectful curiosity, we would likely be less disappointed, more delighted.

The Christmas "Wars"

Most every year my sister-in-law asks me to offer a "toast" at the family Christmas dinner.  This means that I get to negotiate the ground between the brother-in-law who is offended by people who say "Happy Holidays" and the brother-in-law who can't stand it when Christians try "to ram their religion down his throat."  So I try to emphasize how Christmas helps us to remember and honor family members past and present who have sustained us and that we are also honoring the birth of Jesus, the Lamb of God.  Most of all, I try to keep it short.

For me, personally, Christmas has become a profoundly important event, the moment in history when God intervened to restructure radically our relation to the Divine.  But I realize that this is not how most Americans view Christmas or, for that matter, Christianity.

Jesus called upon people to repent and to follow him into a life of radical discipleship and service to God and humanity.  Of course earnest Christians can and will disagree over what that should look 2,000 years later.  But in a world and nation filled with self-preoccupation, injustice, violence, poverty, and ennui, I'll be so bold as to suggest that badgering the beleaguered clerks at Target to say "Merry Christmas" rather than "Happy Holidays" is not high on God's "to do" list.

Overlooked Heroes

As the director/go-fer of Yo Ghana! I spend a fair bit of time visiting schools here in Oregon, including some schools for children who have not succeeded in conventional classrooms.  In fact, just a few days ago I was at such a school.

I am almost always deeply impressed by the dedication of the staff who work at these schools.  These are teachers and administrators who work with very challenging students who often have poor impulse control and other behavior issues.  Yet I'm continually struck by how deeply the staff care for their students--and even a visitor can see that the students apprehend and appreciate this.

These jobs aren't glamorous or high paying.  The people in them are seldom featured in the media.  Few of us notice their work.  But in working with and cherishing students who have experienced a lot of failure and often trauma, they serve and--if we care to notice--inspire us all.

Yo Ghana Near the End of 2013

We have a lot of good news at the end of 2013!  The I.R.S. just approved our application to be a 501(c)(3) public charity.  A set of very dedicated teachers in Ghana and the Pacific Northwest cheerfully and smoothly manage our letter exchanges.  Our brand new board features people raised in diverse places (Ghana, England, Haiti, the U.S., and Canada) and possessed of varied skills (community development, project evaluation, law, accounting, education, Black Studies, economics, computing, engineering).  And we have provided scholarship assistance to students (such as those shown below) whose families cannot afford to send them to school, funds to finish a school’s first library, and electronic equipment such as computers and printers.

            Most of all, we bring Ghanaians and Americans together.  That’s what the students from Morle Junior High School are so excited about in the photograph to the right.  It’s not an athletic contest they are celebrating; they just learned that Yo Ghana! paired them with a school in Springfield, Oregon!

Those schools became our seventh set of partners, and several more are on the way.  Students write about who or what inspires them, family members they miss, their favorite foods, and what goes on outside their classroom door.   They also encourage each other.  As one Ghanaian recently wrote her new American friend: “All that I have to say is that life is not easy at all, but with hard work and dedication things shall be well in the future.”

Please consider a financial gift at the end of the year to help our own “hard work and dedication.”  We are run completely by volunteers both in the U.S. and Ghana, and your donation is tax deductible.  Our website has a Paypal button:            http://www.yoghana.org/   Or contact David del Mar (delmard@pdx.edu)

Passionate, Overworked Teachers

Mr. Essan Weah and I presented a few days ago at the World Council of Oregon "Teach Africa Youth Forum" on Yo Ghana! and came away impressed and inspired by the level of dedication of the students and teachers.

Near the end of our session, one teacher asked us what guidance we had for people trying to select from one of the many opportunities she had been exposed to for a deeper engagement with Africa.  My only piece of advice was to choose a project that she felt passionate about, as she was no doubt already overwhelmed with responsibilities.

I think that's what impresses me most about the teachers Yo Ghana! works with in the U.S. and Ghana.  None of them have the time to take on the extra work of overseeing the writing and sending and receiving of letters.  But they do so anyway.

Teachers in both nations are confronted with a growing list of responsibilities growing numbers of children who need extra attention.  They are also expected to raise everyone's scores on standardized tests that have become the judge and jury as to whether or not their school are deemed good or bad.

How fortunate we all are, then, that so many of these overworked and underpaid professionals are not only willing but eager to search out opportunities for their students to learn about the broader world in ways that will not show up in a test score.