Merry Christmas! This is Laynie from Beyond Tutoring, and this month has been filled with fun and educational events for us. First, we were able to celebrate all that we are thankful for with the kids on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. This was our last Wednesday night tutoring session for the semester since finals are right around the corner. I will miss them over the break!
Also, a couple of group members were able to attend a dinner at Dean Wcislo’s residence in the Commons with a speaker addressing the new movie Waiting for Superman and current ideas about public education in the United States. Although we have not seen the movie, it was interesting to be a part of the conversation with Doctor Catherine Loss, who is the director for the Master of Public Policy program and the Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership and Policy. She brought up a perspective new that I had not considered, including many historical details about American public education and how it relates to the position we are in today. It turns out that schools have always been “broken” to an extent, and now they are being loaded with more and more responsibility as they are supposed to somehow level the playing field for all children from very different social and economic backgrounds.
Finally, Friday night was the Christmas party hosted for the kids by the Black Cultural Center and the Commons. The kids were able to come to campus and make cards for the elderly and decorate cookies. We had a pizza dinner and then each child received a board game as a Christmas present from Vanderbilt. It was a blast to have them on campus and celebrate such a happy time!
Here is a picture of me and Lajuane from the week before Thanksgiving. He wanted to know what it would be like to have long hair!
These are two of the kids, decorating Christmas cookies at Crawford with us on Friday. They were delicious!
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