Dennis TS#9

My fourth tutoring session with Matthew (9^th total) came right after tutoring his brother David for the first time. There was a hiccup in the planning, however, as Matthew was surprised to learn that his session was going to be 50 minutes long (the usual), instead of an expected, shortened 30 minute session to account for consecutive double tutoring. I could tell he was disappointed and it made this session more difficult because he was upset. His affective filter essentially shot all the way up, which was unfortunate because I prepared a selection of notes from Wikipedia about the Hubble Deep Space field and related projects that I thought would interest him a lot. I simply reminded him that everything was ok and time would go by quickly and as far as disappointments go, this really wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. I just asked him to follow along as I read the article, and he slowly recovered from his despondence. The material was challenging for him but he was eager to understand it. It was challenging for me to explain some of the science in terms that were accurate but simplified, but I did my best. He came around slowly, and he read some from a children’s astronomy book. We talked for a little while about the article and different related topics. It was a relief that he wasn’t upset by the end.