• Eric PomertNeighbor

  • Berkeley, CA

<strong>Philosophy</strong>

As an educational mentor, my strength is connecting with students though my love of learning and curiosity for life.  I draw on my strong visual and aural components when I teach.  For example, one of my ESL students has made huge progress by reading aloud the subtitles on highly acclaimed movies we watch together.

My work life revolves around children.  In addition to tutoring, I have a business teaching young children to realize independence and confidence through delicately guided gourmet cooking classes (www.LittleSpoonsCafe.com) where math, science, culture, and sensory delight collide. 

Many of the students I meet are calling for help by expressing confusion, distraction, overwhelm, and despair.  Regardless of what school they attend, these students can touch success and grow with it.  How?  Through emotional support and deep learning:  every child lets me know at least one thing they love and do very well.  That is the crack in the wall.  My job is to highlight that crack so we can greet education with confidence and energy.  One of my students loves Legos and planes:  we bring that passion into his ability to chart a smoother course with math homework and test-taking.  It takes patience, but I have seen kids who once shrank from math and science unleash a hungry engagement with these subjects.  

I have a special place in my heart for children who do not feel at home with school life.  They are often diagnosed with a learning difference.  These students are loaded with potential that cannot be engaged by rote learning nor quickly measured by standardized tests.  They do their best to defend themselves against a system by which they feel unrecognized.  My role is to honor how their wisdom expresses itself naturally.   Once their love of learning is engaged, they start to shine in surprising and individual ways in a variety of academic situations including tests.  

With each student, I build an emotionally expressive relationship of trust and respect.  Some of my students have have had physical or mental challenges.  The common denominator is the movement of human warmth and support.

Sharing the joy of learning with children rewards me beyond measure.  I remember my voracious appetite for learning in elementary school as though it were just a moment ago.  My job is to share that moment with kids who are struggling to re-establish a passion broad enough to light up anything on which they put their attention and interest, whether it be algebra, horseback riding, cooking, literature, geology, or baseball.

<i>Perfecting skills to feel at home with school life.</i>

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