Mary speaks with Joely about their work many years ago - the strategies and tools Joely learned still resonate with them both. Joely is currently working as a member of a media agency for the Loreal account. Joely met Mary Miele when she was in the 9th grade. She was struggling to find a tutor to connect with and was having difficulty with critical thinking - especially the questions of “why” or “how come.” It was hard for her to make sense of what she was being asked to write, even though she could understand the reading.

In their work together, Joely learned how to understand what the questions were asking by breaking down the questions and prioritizing what to attend to. Mary speaks about the curiosity she engaged in while working with Joely. She was noticing an emotional disconnection with the work and wanted to understand that more. Mary spent a lot of time asking questions.

Teachers could understand Joely’s challenge by naming it as a reading comprehension issue or not demonstrating effort. In contrast, Mary saw Joely as putting forth a great amount of effort. Mary asked, “What is going on here that is causing this challenge?” When they met, Mary would break up the question and prioritize what is relevant to the question to help us answer the question. They identified key words. Mary found that Joely loved colors and pens. She would use the pens to color code and have so much fun doing the breakdown. Mary also told Joely to use the colors in testing in class. This work with Joely caused Mary to ask, “What lights this kid up? What makes this more interesting?”

The colors allowed Joely to differentiate what to pay attention to. Joely used this strategy and tool to study in college. She jokes that her friends tried to copy her and steal her colored pens. Mary points out how at one point in their work together she said, “do you notice I did nothing here?” She pointed out how capable Joely was while they worked. Joely speaks about how she found that part to be really helpful because she was struggling in so many ways - but after each session she would feel so much more confident. Joely speaks about how valuable this work has been for her in the long term. She uses the strategy of breaking up and asking for help even now in the workplace. Joely learned in her work to ask for help and be patient for herself. Mary wanted this tutoring to be a transferable for the long term.

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© 2021 Mary Miele