Good news: I'm a peer tutor!

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My school has three special needs rooms: one for aspies, one for LD, and one for those with more profound needs (classic autism, MR, cerebral palsy, etc.) For weeks, I've been spending three periods a day sequestered in the aspie room, and I often become bored and socially understimulated. A few days ago, my IEP team decided that it would be best if I peer tutored in the profound needs room during second period. I started today. .

My job is to read to C, an intelligent quadriplegic who doesn't have enough motor control to hold a book. We read Twilight today, and she indicated that she liked my reading voice using a hand signal. It was a wonderful experience, helping someone.

On a more selfish note, I got the social interaction that I had been craving. I met and communicated with all the students ("communicated" is used in the broadest sense here: speaking, letterboard use, typing, use of text-to-speech engines, eye contact, and friendly grunting are forms of communication), as well as the teachers and the nurses. I've had more conversation today than I had in the entire month of January.

One more thing: if I turn out to be a good and responsible peer tutor, I get to start doing work study!



Are you allowed to have a career in peer tutoring?

Good Work

Mentorship and community building programs are becoming more common in educational talks! Possibly there is a job for you in the future.