Primary Task

I think the most satisfying experience I have had as a peer tutor, as cheesy as it might sound, has been developing relationships with the students in my class.
When I am sick or most class is away on a field trip, I miss seeing them, interacting and being able to help. I've loved getting to know the students' personalities in their schoolwork and in how they are in 'normal' life. I think I enjoyed this so much becaue, before taking peer tutoring, I didn't have much experience being a person of authority. As a peer tutor, I get to help, be a positive role-model and act 'teacher-ish', but I think it is also easier for the students to relate to me than it is for them to relate to the teacher. In this way, I think it is the best of both worlds a lot of the time. I've learned that I think being someone people look to for help or guidance is its own reward, especially when you get to laugh and get to know them too, as silly or superficial as that may sound.
For example: I felt really satisfied once when a student from my peer tutoring class came up to me in the hallway at lunch to ask for help. He didn't even want help for the class I peer tutored.... it was some other random class! I helped him for a while and it finally clicked. We were laughing and I really had a good time, and he really understood his lesson. I think it is little things like that that make people want to become teachers.
And I'm usually not one for the cheesy stuff! Most of the time when people say things like 'Helping others is its own reward' I think of some ridiculous motivational speaker. I never understand emotions or ideas like this when they are explained to me. It always takes my own personal experiences to convince me that sayings like that can be true, and I think peer tutoring has been one of those experiences.
I think being a peer tutor is really optimal because it allows you to get to know people on two levels: as a teacher, and as a friend.
Mme. Ducharme often tries to get the class laughing to keep everyone happier and she has definitely shown me that this can work when students are struggling or stressed. For example, one time, a student I was helping one-on-one was having a really tough time learning a verb tense. We had gone through many many verbs, and she told me it still had not 'clicked' and she was very stressed out for the quiz the next day. I figured she just needed a mental break, so we enlisted her friend to tell us a funny story about his weekend to calm her down. Five minutes later, with her brain refreshed and her heart happy, the verb tense finally clicked. Though some people work well under pressure, I think having your head relaxed and your heart happy really makes it easier to soak up information for many people..