July 10

July 10

Despite what we had been hoping for, it appears that we won’t get an extra week and so classes will resume on Monday.  It has been great to get to know these kids and see them grow and improve over the last couple of weeks.  If such a change was visible over this short period of time, I can only imagine how much more they could accomplish if given more time with the program.

Today I was able to see an enormous improvement in two siblings, Cristina and Jhonny. Coming from a numerous family, (eight siblings in total, though only five of them were part of our program) and a modest lifestyle, eight-year old Jhonny not yet had the chance to go school.  When I first opened an account for him on the website and found out his math knowledge consisted on all the number from one to two hundred, Eduardo and I tried to teach addition to him. He picked it up surprisingly well and by the end of his first day he had already moved to two-digit additions and subtractions. Now Jhonny can solve multi-digit additions and subtractions that involve carrying. Cristina too has seen a major improvement. Struggling with systems of equations, she went back and reviewed her times tables as well as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of negative numbers. We then went back and tried the basic system of equations exercises; however there was still something that pulled her back-lineal equations. Today Cristina had a great breakthrough and got every single question right. She could not believe she had found these equations hard at one point. I reassured her that this has happened to all of us and is more frequent than one would think. Everything builds up, and if you do not have the right foundations then sooner or later things crumble.

These kinds have surprised me in a way I had never thought would be possible. I know they are capable of this and so much more. I hope they too are aware of it too.

AP