When we discussed this in committee at our inital meeting I brought up the idea of using retired teachers to tutor in the meeting rooms. I also had in mind to bring up peer tutoring (student to student), but had thought to bring up the use of retired teachers first. While peer tutoring has much to commend it (leadership training, the fact that the teacher always learns more than the student, lack of hidden agendas with peers, no need to have livescan fingerprinting done), I would like LAPL to consider how to avoid any problems that have been encountered in the past with the use of retired teachers. Retired teachers have a reservoir of experience to draw upon in teaching methodology. They know what works and what doesn't work. With proper screening and monitoring, those who have a hidden agenda could be weeded out. I would hate to see us throw out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to using retired teachers. Livescan fingerprinting is expensive, but with corporate sponsorship that can be overcome. After all, we have those involved in the GAB program fingerprinted. The fact that adults have to be livescan fingerprinted is not be an insurmountable obstacle. Especially when there is great benefit to be gained. Using retired teachers in conjunction with peer tutoring would be ideal, because the experienced teachers can guide the peer teachers in methodology that works. Finally, retired teachers who are willing to pay their own livescan fingerprinting costs would be very committed and reliable. As I think about this further, I see no reason why competent people who have never formally served as teachers couldn't participate in such a program. There are retired engineers, accountants, scientists, etc. that could be recruited just as we recruit people to serve as GAB volunteers. Perhaps the screening for such volunteers could be done in conjunction with LAUSD, parallel to how Children's Services has screened potential GAB members in the past. While LAPL may not have the manpower or competency to do training that screens potential tutors, this would be an excellent collaborative enterprise that could harness the expertise of LAUSD as trainers/screeners for those who wish to serve as adult tutors. I suppose some of the questions to be answered in conjunction with this would be: Do the benefits outweigh the difficulties? Does this help the public buy in to the relevancy of the library? Does it serve to strengthen the partnership LAPL is seeking to foster with the LAUSD? Use of peer tutoring alone is far easier to implement, but it is really a solitary effort, not a collaborative one with LAUSD. On the other hand, the use of peer tutoring together with the use of other competent adult volunteers will foster the type of collaborative effort we aim to develop between LAPL and LAUSD. We need to be open minded to exploring possibilities at this stage so we don't miss out on ideas that could turn out to be useful if further developed.
Peer Tutoring AND use of retired teachers (and perhaps others)
