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ARAB TIMES, THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 2021 NEWS/FEATURES 13 People & Places Education TutorScope helps students Teens tutor peers online to fi ll need SANTA FE, N.M., Jan 20, (AP): When her suburban Dallas high school was forced to move online last spring because of the coronavirus pandemic, Charvi Goyal realized that the schoolmates she’d been infor- mally tutoring between classes would still need extra help but wouldn’t necessarily be able to get it. So she took her tutoring online, as well. Goyal, a 17-year-old high school junior from Plano, roped in three classmates to create TutorScope, a free tutoring service run by high schoolers for other kids, including younger ones. What started with a handful of instructors helping friends’ siblings in their home- town has blossomed into a group of 22 tutors from Texas, Arizona, and Ohio that has helped more than 300 students from as far away as South Korea. “I could foresee that schools were going to go virtual. And with that there were a couple of problems because the in- teractions between students and students, and students and teachers would be weakened,” Goyal said. TutorScope provides the one-on-one support that teach- Goyal ers have traditionally given while roving the aisles of their classrooms but now often can’t because of the time and technology constraints posed by online schooling. On a night near the end of the fall semester, tutor Avi Bagchi worked with 7-year-old twins Monika and Massey Newman on a reading comprehension lesson about discerning between fact and opinion. During their half-hour video chat, the 16-year-old Plano High School student provided the children from nearby Corinth with examples — it’s a fact that the pen is red but an opinion if one doesn’t like it — and reined them in when they got off topic a bit: Can’t it be a fact that someone holds an opinion? “I love candy. That’s a fact ...” said Massey, “... be- This image released by Peacock shows Amber Ruffin from the comedy series ‘The Amber Ruffin Show,’ available on the Peacock streaming service. (AP) cause it’s true,” he and his sister said in unison. Their mother, social worker Sarah Newman, said the twins’ TutorScope sessions have been really help- ful and have freed up her and her 17-year-old son to Television focus on their own work. “With these tutors, I realize they have time,” she said. “I think they are very patient with these younger kids, which I do not even have as a mother. I have patience in other things, (but) I don’t have patience in Exuberant charm lures viewers to her show the teaching.” Semester Newman discovered TutorScope a few weeks into ‘Wildly silly’ Ruffi n earns TV spotlight the fall semester on Nextdoor, a neighborhood-based social media app, and signed up her twins for sessions, By Lynn Elber she and other Black women are mak- Rae. Why do you think that’s the which can be up to an hour each week per subject. ing their mark, and the book Ruffi n case? “At the time I was even looking for tutoring for f you’re someday in need of a wrote with her sister, Lacey Lamar, Ruffi n: Most of the Black women them, like private tutoring, and every spot that I hit Iplus-one to liven an unpromis- about routine brushes with racism I know take care of what is wrong, was too costly for those two kids. I’m like, I can’t af- ing party, consider Amber Ruffin. — and yes, “You’ll Never Believe and no matter what their job is, ford it,” Newman said. In fact, skip the party and just hang What Happened to Lacey” is funny they’re doing four people’s jobs. TutorScope isn’t the fi rst nonprofi t to offer online with Ruffin, whose weekly comedy as well as eye-opening. The inter- They’re always making sure that tutoring and is just one of the workarounds people show is proving her to be excellent view has been edited for clarity and everything’s taken care of, and when have come up with to educate kids during the pandem- company. length. no one else will do it, it falls to us. ic, from a teacher in Nigeria who grades homework Ruffi n’s exuberant charm can AP: What pulled you out of your I think once people started hiring from around the world to a so-called sidewalk school Geena Davis arrives at the 24th an- and should lure you in to Peacock’s hometown and to Chicago to pursue Black women to write on shows, in Mexico that offers online instruction to children, in- nual Screen Actors Guild Awards on cluding some stuck at the border awaiting decisions on weekly “The Amber Ruffi n Show,” a career in comedy? they realized we won’t just take care Jan 21, 2018, in Los Angeles. Davis but expect humor that’s incisive and Ruffi n: I used to improvise in of the things you asked us to hand in. US asylum requests. turns 65 on Jan 21. (AP) What makes the TutorScope effort unique is the impressively deft, including on race, Omaha and it was very fun, and we We’ll produce the (expletive) out of bond between the teenage volunteers and the peers politics and the sunny side of life, would go to Chicago to do the Chica- stuff. I think people are slowly real- they’re helping. such as it is. go Improv Festival, which was a big izing that is Black women behavior, “We kind of want to keep the whole ‘for students by A memorable moment from Ruf- deal. You set to see real improvisers and then once you put some money students’ thing really prominent since it provides a sort of fi n’s show last fall was a lullaby you only ever heard stories about. So behind it, whoa, baby, we’ll do all solidarity. Because everyone is going through the same she sang oh-so-sweetly: “The sun one year I’m there and Charna Halp- the work. thing, you know that your tutor is also having the same has set, it’s time to go to bed. Brush ern, who runs the iO Theater in Chi- AP: Your sister has made a habit struggles learning right now that you are,” Goyal said. your teeth and rest your sleepy head. cago, said, ‘If you move here, you’ll of keeping notes on her encounters The group accepts donations from adults but limits When you wake in the morning, have a full-time job within a year.’ with racism, at work and elsewhere. volunteers to students, including at least one college you’ll rise and do your best. Then And she was right, I did. How did you decide that would undergrad. in November, your vote will be sup- AP: Did you know what your ulti- make for a book? Now in their third semester, the TutorScope board pressed.” mate goal was? Ruffi n: When something rac- has secured nonprofi t status from the IRS and per- Trained in improv and a writer on Ruffi n: Everything that happens ist happens to her, she calls me on suaded a software company to give them free access Bow Wow Bryant NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Mey- to me is a surprise. I did not see the phone, and she’ll be telling the to a scheduling platform. Jessica Ding, 16, manages ers” since 2014, Ruffi n was ready myself ever going to New York. story and I’ll be doubled over laugh- the website and parent emails, Angelina Ehara, 17, co- for her star turn on Peacock: The And when I got this job writing for ing and crying because it’s hilarious. ordinates public outreach and social media, and Kaus- Variety streaming service ordered 10 addi- Seth, I knew people wrote for late- That’s everybody who gets discrimi- tubh Sonawane, 16, runs the signup process. night shows, but you just don’t hear nated against, like when you were The tutors, for their part, get experience that will tional episodes of the weekly show look great on a college or job application - no small that debuted last fall, with new half- a lot about that and certainly don’t talking to your boss and he couldn’t thing with many other extracurriculars shelved during HOUSTON: Rapper Bow Wow apolo- hours released on Fridays. hear about Black people doing it, so stop looking at your boobs. I was on the pandemic. They also get a sense of whether they gized after Houston’s mayor called him Ruffin easily shifts from “wildly it just didn’t occur to me that it was my way for a meeting about doing might want to teach full-time or run a business or an out for attending a crowded gathering at silly to incredibly insightful and a thing. Then when I got this job, I a book and Lacey called and said, a city nightclub during a weekend packed moving,” Meyers said. “There are thought, ‘Oh, I’m just never going to ‘You will never believe this. We got NGO someday. with concerts as Texas continues to grap- New tutors undergo limited training: they watch very few people that can swing know what is the next thing.’ I don’t T-shirts at work because we met our ple with the coronavirus. try to guess and I don’t try to plan goal, and all the supervisors except recordings of tutoring sessions.

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