Sandra: Central City tutor

Certified Tutor

This tutor earned three degrees over the course of her career-- first she earned a BS degree in secondary English education from East Carolina University, with which she taught high school English for two years before returning to graduate school at her alma mater, ECU, where she then earned a Master's degree in technical and professional communication (English department), with which she contracted in industry with the IRS, HUD, and then ATF while earning her Ph.D. in African American literature, which was earned on full scholarship at Howard University.

After teaching 16 years in the university setting, this tutor married and had two daughters and then joined them in the public school system, teaching at her older daughter's high school where her daughter graduated in 2022. This tutor is currently teaching in an alternative school setting, helping students who have fallen behind in academics, teaching in an accelerated academic program. This tutor tutors in reading, writing, grammar, and style.

This tutor has always loved English and earned three degrees in English due to her love for reading and writing poetry, with which she published an award-winning collection based on the topic of her dissertation, William E. B. Du Bois, entitled: BROAD SYMPATHIES IN A NARROW WORLD: THE LEGACY OF W. E. B. DU BOIS.

Concerning her teaching philosophy and tutoring style, her method of teaching is constructivist, which follows in the path of Dewey, Piaget, Vigotsky, and others. She avoids some kind of knowledge "out there" independent of the learner, especially in reference to poetry. She believes that the value in education is learning to think for oneself, to think critically. She avoids an authoritarian approach to teaching and seeks reflective activity, as Dewey terms it. She endeavors to be progressive and uses poetry in her classes to engage students to think about the process of composing, for the language of poetry is highly structured and condensed, and reading it effectively trains students to reflect analytically as well as critically.

Outside of academia, she enjoys long walks for exercise with sprints of running when her body cooperates. She would like to return to her love for bicycling and swimming. Most of all, she loves teaching and seeing the light bulbs turn on when students finally understand complicated concepts. She currently takes classes at the local university to strengthen her teaching skills, as required by the state of Alabama and the Alabama reading initiative. She always endeavors to be the best teacher that she can be, for teaching is what she feels called to do.