23rd January 2012 9:00
By Blue Tutors
Students at Bismark High School are being given the opportunity to tutor Junior School students to earn the volunteer hours that they need. Reported in the Bismark Tribune, there have always been a number of ways to complete the required number of volunteer hours: raking leaves, serving at a soup kitchen, helping at an animal shelter, or working at any number of the nearby charity shops. However, asking the students to tutor youngsters is a relatively new move, and clearly a popular one, because the number of tutors has doubled since last year.
One of the tutors, Melissa Stewart, said that she decided on tutoring because she thought it would be fun, and was proved right. She remembered receiving tuition from high school students when she was younger, and really appreciated it. Senior Darby Schmidt has been tutoring a student in the 5th grade since September, and says that it’s so encouraging to see him go from getting 2 out of 10 to 8 in maths and English tests.
For many tutors the experience is a fun way to complete the required voluntary work, but it has also provided genuine guidance to others. Kelsie Lipelt is a senior keen to become a nurse, but she says that she now wants to be involved in paediatrics after her tutoring experience. Kelsie added that paediatrics was a unit she would not even have considered were it not for her experience as a tutor.