Freddy the frog from Sungei Buloh

I finally went for my first CDAC tutoring session tonight since I signed up as a volunteer two months ago. The Tampines CDAC tuition centre is a cosy establishment located in an HDB void deck just across the street from Tampines Central. There, I met the other three tutors: one who was a professional teacher in a secondary school, another a J2 student from VJ (an aspiring teacher) and the third a nature lover from the Singapore Environment Council (who handed out Green Map brochures, which showed all the nature areas in Singapore, after the session). I didn't know this, but apparently the CDAC pays an allowance of 10 dollars for each session a volunteer attends to cover food and travel expenses, an amount which more than covers my parking fees each time I go.

Tonight, I guided a Primary 4 kid through a cloze passage on Freddy the frog who lives in Sungei Buloh, and who has a cousin Frank in the city. It was tougher and required more patience than I thought it would, especially since the boy had a really limited vocabulary (and couldn't spell simple words like "nice"!). Resorted to explaining stuff in Chinese since that's the language he responded more to. The boy seemed to be struggling so much that I relented after about half an hour and let him read his Pokemon comics. I also guided a Primary 6 kid through another cloze, a rather morbid one on a grandfather that went missing for weeks and later discovered dead in a void deck.

After the two-hour session, the tutors stayed back to discuss a game plan to make the sessions more useful for the kids. The VJ student was enthusiastic about getting the kids interested in reading and had brought his Harry Potter books for the kids to borrow. Said he would bring his Enid Blytons next week. Apparently there's a "Mr Midnight" series that's pretty popular among the kids nowadays, though I've never heard of it. As for the environmentalist, he was all for getting the kids interested in current affairs, and had cited the example of telling the kids about the pope and who he was. I thought he was well-meaning, but let's be realistic here, was anyone ever interested in current affairs when they were in primary school? Hell no.

Headed back there this Sat for the math session.