A tutoring gig

It looks like I will be tutoring high school kids in the near future.

One of the fine people up at the high school mentioned that there is a screaming need for math tutors and for tutors who are men.  Mrs ERJ planted her elbow in my ribs.

Ninth graders

It is my impression that many ninth graders lack the ability to see that all long-term progress is achieved through the execution of many short steps.  They see goals as a million miles away and quickly lose heart.  They are also excruciatingly sensitive to social cues...both real and imaginary.

As adults, we know the value of tracking intermediate goals throughout the journey.  We plan where we should be at the end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of the month...and so on.  Adults make meaningful adjustments when we fall short of the plan.  We nourish our resolve by celebrating our little victories, even when the goal is as pedestrian as making it to New Madrid before dark.

It is a challenge to come up with a tracking system that passes muster for "coolness".

I, personally, am totally blind to coolness so I have to enlist the aid of uber-cool guys like Nik.

Nik is the prototypical-cis-male.  He is so cool that he makes people in the "diversity industry" wet their pants. 

Of course Nik has a blog  but you should not visit his blog if you offended by poker, golf, cigars, Kimbers, adult beverages, scorching essays about liberals and pictures of healthy women wearing swimwear.  Just saying he speaks his mind and don't go there if you are a princess who is battered and bruised by a photograph of a pea beneath the mattress of your water bed.

The answer was crystal clear to Nik.  "You need poker chips.  Poker chips are cool." 

I think Nik plans on gifting the ERJ Tutoring company some old poker chips.  I informed him that I needed something that kids could not run out to Walmart and buy.  He said he may have something that will work.

My plan is to have the kids keep track of their chips in a page from a coin album. I will cough up some money to buy pizza when they have accumulated enough chips.

My backup plan is to buy a hundred poker chips at Walmart and to customize them by gluing faces on them.

Decent article HERE.

Examples of Mexican Huichol Indian art that will look good on a poker chip.

Thanks Nik!