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Marco O.
Private tutor in Arlington, MA
Education
College of William & Mary BA - Urban Studies, 1985 Boston Univ MAT - Social Stud Tchg & Curriculum, 1985 Northeastern Univ EdD - Curr/Tchg/Lrng/Leadership, ongoing
Experience
I was a career independent school educator who taught and advised for 22 years, coached for 16 years, and lived in student residences for 17 years. Partially overlapping with my teaching career, for the past 8 years I have tutored students ranging from 6th grade through graduate school. My teaching and my tutoring emphasize the skills-and-confidence-based "journey" that enhances and individualizes what is otherwise experienced as the mundane memorization of details. My classes were noted for their strict adherence to rubric-based expectations, out-of-classroom targeted projects, alternative test formats, democratized decision making, and dynamic student interaction. My tutoring philosophy is to always use the task at hand (an upcoming essay, research project, or AP exam) as the means to an end, which is to help the student both hold a mirror to his or her strengths and challenges as a learner while also aspiring to a purposeful expectation of future success that goes beyond that designated task. My experiences as an independent school student advisor, class advisor, and service trip chaperone taught me to always acknowledge and build upon the potentially vital context that surrounds any learning opportunity - which is no less true in an ongoing tutoring relationship than it was in a classroom. Living and working with everyone else's teenagers taught me a lot about the language, behavior, and attitudes that attend moments of struggle with academic content and/or learning skills. I have a deep interest in and even deeper respect for the changing nature of what it means to acquire identity and to learn in an era of expanding personal technology and social media. Always having seen myself more as sheep dog than as shepherd, I never assume that I can "teach" anyone anything unless I am also learning from them as well. Please visit my LinkedIn page to read testimonials; more available upon request.
Subject Expertise
Social Studies, History, Writing, Study Skills, Organization, ADD, ADHD