How our project came to be... Beyond Tutoring

     On Wednesday nights last year, a group of Vanderbilt freshmen tutored a group of underprivileged kids ages 5 – about 14 who attend public schools here in Nashville. As the year went on, I got to know a lot of these kids and discovered that a lot of them are very bright!


     This made me think about my own education and all the factors that played into my academic “success”. I thought: What if I had been born into a household with one parent, who has to work too many hours to provide for the family? What if I didn’t have the encouragement from my parents to do well in school and go to college, not necessarily because they don’t care, but because they are simply too busy working to be able to afford basic things like food and rent? What if I was raised in a community where I didn’t know many, if any, adults who graduated from college, or even high school?


     Wow. I would be in a totally different situation. But that is the background many kids face, and unfortunately they have to try to overcome that by themselves. I realized that these kids not only need help with their assignments due this week, but they need someone to set an example for them for the future. To tell them that school is important, that an education is powerful, learning actually can be fun, and just let them know that there is someone in this community that truly cares. That is why our name is “Beyond Tutoring”, because we know that the short time we will be able to spend with the kids, helping them pass their classes for one year is just not enough. It is like the saying, “give a man a fish and he will eat for the day, but teach a man to fish and he will have food throughout his life.” We face the same situation: We need to help the kids with their immediate homework, but more importantly, we need to show them the value of education, help them set academic goals, and encourage them and be an example of how to achieve those goals. We need to go beyond tutoring with these kids to really make a difference for their lives.

- Laynie Boland, Beyond Tutoring on 12th Ave