Who am I?

Many people, when asked the above question, reel off a list of their credentials. I will too – in my Bio. At this point, just know that Apex Tutoring Academy, with its cadre of experienced professionals, is eminently qualified to address the reading deficits and all the academic needs of your children from grades 3 to 6. Here, I will share who I am at my core, the encounters and conflicts I had with myself with regards to the “cookie cutter” factory default setting the education fare has become in too many public schools around the nation.

How do I know this?

I know this because during my over 30 years as an educator and trained administrator, I have taught from the primary to the tertiary level. I have seen it first-hand. The data supports this fact as well.

I know because students enter middle and high schools not being able to read. It is a constant source of frustration and I had to ask myself, “what are you going to do about it?”

Parents are equally frustrated, anxious, and stressed. They feel very guilty and without a real sense of what to do and where to turn. Their children do not feel successful and as a result, neither do they.

There is no feeling as disturbing as the one that suggests that you have failed your children. Then the pandemic happened. Those students who already had reading difficulty slid back even further, as most schools transitioned to full time, online teaching.

The world, at that point, was not quite prepared for it. Schools scurried to find a model that worked well. During that transition, many students zoned out from a lack of structure, and it was a constant struggle for teachers to get them to stay on camera. Those school systems that lacked technological resources and experienced teacher attrition, did not meet the moment adequately. As a result of those 2 pandemic years there is still a reading gap that has not been closed, in fact, I see it widening.

In many states, even before the pandemic, teachers are handed a scripted curriculum to follow slavishly. They get in trouble if an administrator walks in and they are not on the correct section of the script. No deviation, no innovation. No fun. Learning should be fun from K-12 and still be engaging on the levels thereafter. Students with learning disabilities are frequently undiagnosed. Dyslexia is one of the greatest hurdles that many students face. It prevents them from learning, leads to incredible frustration and dropout rates, particularly in high school.

True educators know that not every child has the same learning style. The auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic learners all experience information differently. A savvy teacher knows that sometimes it is necessary to ditch the plan for the day and teach or reteach a previous lesson or concept so the students can connect to the material in more meaningful ways when the teacher resumes the topic.

I am a great proponent of group tutoring for this reason as students are great resources for each other. They provide multiple perspectives which provide clarification for themselves and their peers.

I remember a physics teacher I had in high school who was teaching the concept of gravitational pull. She asked one student to “pull” the textbook. The student promptly opened the book. Most of us were surprised to say the least. I savored the moment because I learned that in some rural communities, “pull” means to open. Had I been the only student in class with the teacher, I would not have learned that.

Let’s talk about the different levels and abilities of students in one big, overcrowded classroom. Everyone is always concerned about the children who are not performing well. They should be appropriately concerned but there are children in that same room who complete their work in 15 minutes and have nothing else to do.

Class sizes are too big, especially in large urban cities. Who is attending to the prodigies - those children who need to be challenged and leveled up? Many are used as mini-tutors when they should be provided with a more rigorous, advanced curriculum. Apex Tutoring Academy has a program designed for these advanced students.

One of the most valuable accolades I claim is that of “passionate educator.” Teaching has been a time- honored profession in my family. Everyone had taught at some time or other, but the most committed teachers were my Mom, her first daughter, my loving big sister Joan Shuttleworth, who would pay/bribe me in chocolate-covered raisins to learn my phonics, and Mom's last daughter (me).

My late Mom Daphne May Messam-Brown never went to college to train formally to become a teacher the way my big sister and I did, but Mama was phenomenal! She wrote plays, poetry and stories and frequently transformed our front yard into a classroom or a stage depending on the lesson she had planned. Shakespeare had nothing on her!

My big sister taught for over 40 years at the elementary level and now I have been an educator for over 30 years. So, it was a no-brainer for me to consult with my reading specialist big sister when designing the ATA curriculum. Though retired, she still teaches students at church to play the recorder twice per week.

Teaching students to read and excel and watching their confidence awaken and soar… there is nothing comparable to that feeling. My students in New York would laugh at me and say, “Ms. Hall, you got goosies!” Yes, I would get “goose bumps” when my students accomplished amazing education milestones and I see how what I had poured into them transform their world view. Sharing the gift of literacy is what gives me life whether I am teaching English or Spanish.

I think back to the times when I was too young to go to school and my mom, after completing her chores, which included shining the floor with the coconut husk brush so I could see my reflection, would spread a blanket with pillows to prop me up. She always had snacks next to me. Mom would then hand me a colorful Archie comic book. I looked at the bright colors and “picture read.” I examined the pictures of Archie, Betty, Veronica and Reggie and invented my own story plots based on their clothes, actions and facial expressions. She would read World Wars 1 and 2 comics to me about soldiers being stranded on the beaches of Normandy and how people went to save the allied forces using bicycles and whatever conveyance they could find. Ordinary people performing extraordinary feats of bravery, not caring about their own safety but committed to sending the allied forces home. I didn’t know it then but I was learning about characterization, mood, setting, mental traits and so much more. To this day, I am an insanely curious person. There is nothing I do not want to learn something about. During those daily reading sessions with my mom, I felt cocooned and so safe as I snuggled closer to her reveling in the warmth she radiated. Those were truly halcyon days!

I am that person who will not allow our students at Apex Tutoring Academy to fail for lack of reading skills. When I got to Kindergarten, or Infant School as we called it back home in Jamaica, I was already reading. I was far ahead of my peers. At the elementary level I skipped first grade and entered grade two. I was promoted to grade four at the end of grade two because I was, again, far ahead of my peers’ reading levels.

I got my passion for storytelling from my mom. There were many Saturday mornings when I got up and I realized that there were four or five kids sleeping on the carpet in our living room because after Mama told them some stories they were too scared to go home.

We never had telephones back then but nobody worried about their children, if they didn't see them they knew instinctively that they had slept over at our house. My mom created a learning community that I want to continue to replicate and improve on as I did in Jamaica and New York. Apex Tutoring Academy will do just that in the virtual space.

Reading is the underpinning of every subject ever taught. I want to bestow the gift of reading on every child who enters our virtual classroom. As for the prodigies, well they will become even more prodigious!

See you on the inside…