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Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
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Like a monitor more than a tutor
- 11-08-2010
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By Sarah Maslin Nir/New York Times
Sitting at a dining room table festooned with papers, colored folders and laptop and iPad screens in his Upper West Side apartment, Benji Sternberg, 13, rattled off correct answers to a slew of homework questions, peppering them with wisecracks and occasional bursts of song. Benji can do his eighth-grade math in his head and is as quick-witted and glib as Conan O’Brien, but he still had some assistance. Next to him sat Susana Kraglievich — as she has on many school nights for the past two years — in a role that is a riff on a traditional tutor: she is his homework helper. If a student finds French grammar or algebra incomprehensible, a tutor in those subjects can help. But if the problem is a child who will not budge from the Xbox, or pens doodles instead of topic sentences, some harried parents with cash to spare have been turning to homework helpers who teach organizational skills and time management, or who sometimes just sit there until the work is finished. (more…)
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