Talkin' with Tutors (Part 18)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:25):
Well, hello, hello everyone, it's your girl, Gabrielle. Welcome to
a brand new episode of Hot Topics. All right, so
let me just take this moment to tell you what
the show is about. So, this is a show where
we like to have a real talk about orial teens.

(00:48):
As we are under a step ahead tutoring services, we
do have a scope. We like to stay within a
certain realm. So we do a lot of topics and education,
mental health, physical health. We've done so many episodes about homeschooling,
living with disabilities. We just did an episode about ultra

(01:14):
ultra I already forgot what it's called, ulcerative colitis alsortative
colitis collidus. Sorry I'm fumbling my mouth, but yes, we
just had an episode on that. So it's a lot
of different things that we like to cover here on
the show. But there is a singular purpose for all

(01:35):
of that, and it's for you to be more informed
than how you were yesterday. So we want you to
be more informed, we want you to have more knowledge,
we want you to be more empowered than how you
were yesterday, and we are going to accomplish that today.
So today I have a repeat topic. I love it

(01:58):
when I can bring back topics to the show, but
a different guest. So first let me tell you what
the topic is today. So that topic is talking with tutors,
that's right. So this is the part eighteen. So this
is the eighteenth time that I have brought this topic,

(02:19):
talking with tutors, that's right. As a tutorpreneur, I love
it when I could talk to other udrepreneurs so we
can dish it out about the industry and maybe I
could see how they do things and you know, maybe
pick up from them. So I love it when I
can talk to other utrepreneurs. But this is that opportunity
once again, talking with Tutors Part eighteen. You guys, make

(02:42):
sure you check out the other seventeen parts in our catalog.
But yes, today is part eighteen. And my guest who
is going to help me out. Her name is Sharonda Smith.
So let's let me tell you about who she is. So,

(03:04):
who is Sharonda Smith? Let me just get that up there,
there we go. Who is Sharanda Smith? Let me tell you, well,
she goes by her full name, Sharanda Marie Smith. She
was born on May thirtieth, nineteen eighty six, in San Antonio,
Texas to David Lee Smith, a dedicated social worker, and

(03:24):
Tarwin Stephanie Smith Thompson, a compassionate registered nurse. She has
one brother, two wonderful children, and a large extended family
full of cousins. Autism and ADHD have a profound impact
on her upbringing. Her interests are gardening, carpentry, poetry, reading,

(03:46):
and cooking, but her greatest passion lies in math and science.
She naturally connects everything she does back to those subjects.
So although grade school was socially and cognitively challenging, victually
English academics came more easily, which inspired her to become
a teacher. So in twenty twenty three, she founded in

(04:07):
Richology Tutoring, a service that supports neurodivergent learners and building
confidence and competence in math through personalized hands on learning experiences. Beautiful,
all right, without further ado, I'm gonna go ahead and
bring her to the stage. Hi, Sharonda, how's it going

(04:28):
going good?

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Going good?

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Gabriel, good good, good, Well, thank you for coming on
Hot Topics. Welcome to the hot seat. So this is
your chance to highlight yourself and your business and how
you got started I love talking to other tutors. So
let's start off with a soft ball question, if you
can call it that, But what made you become a tutor?

Speaker 3 (04:52):
Ooh, multiple things. I love teaching right Well. When I
was younger, I said I wanted to be a teacher
and I wanted to be a physician. I've always wanted
to do both teach and to heal. I just didn't
know which one I wanted to do first, or how
it was going to get there, no kind of roadmap
or path. And I went into the classroom largely because,

(05:16):
as I said, I found school to be easy.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
In some respects, because I learned how I learned.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
And I hated school though, and some of those aspects
that I hated a school, I didn't know how to
pinpoint them until.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
I was in the classroom. Then I was like, ah,
so this is why I don't like this.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
And so I decided to leave. I still support the
education in my neighborhood. I still support the schools I've
worked for. I am blessed for the experiences, but I
prefer one on one interaction.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
I believe that.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
Education at its best is indeed personal. So I decided
to become a tutor who specializes in helping other students
who've had who I'm familiar with their struggles.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
I can help them with that.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
And I believe that personalization is something that can be
sorely missing that helps give people that little bit of
extra owns to become who they need to.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
Be, who they want to be.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
All right, lovely, lovely, lovely. So so you you said
something that struck me, which is you you hated school?
You know, that's that's very That's a common phrase that
I hear students say, do you mind talking more about that?
What was it about school that you hated so much?

Speaker 3 (06:39):
I hated the fact that I love to learn, but
I wasn't Like when it comes to learning content in
a classroom with a whole bunch of other people, of course,
you have to go with whatever it's being taught at
the moment. And some subjects I would love to dive
deeper or dwell deeper into, but there just wasn't or

(07:01):
there were some subjects so I'm like, this completely does
not interest me.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
But I need to just get this so I can
get the grade.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
And that's also those topics were actually the ones who
taught me how to teach myself because I hated it
so much, I had to figure out how to like it.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
I had to figure out how to eat the vegetables
and so.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
But I still deeply believe that sometimes there are those
topics that intrinsically, like something about us is attached to it,
and we want to push further into it. But because
of the time limits of the classroom and the constraints
of having so many people, and sometimes even just how
the classroom is set up itself or run or whichever,
that curiosity is discouraged for the sake of time.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
And I get it.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
It's I understand now that education is I don't want
to say, oh, like a Walmart kind of thing solution,
but it's a general solution, and it wasn't necessarily meant
to be as blanket or complete for everyone. It was
just a band aid to make sure that people can
try to get some of the basics. But it wasn't
meant to amplify and to bring up put people on

(08:11):
a path to excellence per se.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
So it wasn't that you hated learning per se. It
was the constraints of learning. It was time, It was
being around all those kids. Maybe your teacher, didn't, you know,
give as much attention to you as you would have liked.
So it was the you wanted more than what the

(08:39):
system could give you. Is that? Did I get that?

Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yes, that's pretty accurate, And I feel like a lot
of people it was just like, for example, I love
cellular biology. We have three weeks to cover that in
biology when I was in school or whichever, and then
we have to move on to something else. And so
I feel so that that discourages the type of curiosity
that creates people who are inventors, Like we were talking

(09:06):
about any kind of major invenor back in the day.
We have Benjamin Banneker, we have Thomas Edison, we have
all of these famous inventors. But how did they get there.
It's because of their persistence and they're dwelving into this
concept to the point that they could pull it apart,
but that takes time, and so I feel like the

(09:26):
education system doesn't really encourage that kind of dedication to
one concept.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
Right, And that is the downside to the school system
is they're trying to jam in like twelve different topics
in a ten month span, and especially when you're working
with different students, with different learning styles and learning speeds.
And now now we have more there's more attention to

(09:57):
neuro divergent kids. You know, that makes it ficult to
you know, focus more on those particular topics.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Mhm.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yes, especially with neurodivergent students. Interests is a big thing.
As I said, my brother was autistic.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
I say it was.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
He passed away some years ago, and he'said, Okay, he's
actually a primary motivation for me to figure out who
I am and do what I need to do, and
a reminder that life is limited and we only have.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
So much time.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
But when it comes to interest in neurodivergent learners, that
is a big part of how we learn. We have
to be stimulated by our interest for that dopamine kid
because we don't naturally have the same levels of dopamine
that most other people have. So our interests are what
gives us that our brain the impetus to really focus.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Are you okay talking about him? And because he seems
to be the the foundation of your business, so if
you're talking about it, yeah, you know, what was his
learning style like of what was it like for him?

Speaker 2 (11:05):
And yeah, it's good.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
I'm perfectly fine talking about him. As just said, I've
had to do a lot of my own deep soul
searching and stuff like that, and I've come to a
place where it's I enjoy talking about him. So he
was my younger brother, two years younger. I started teaching
him as soon as I could. I was like, okay,

(11:30):
so we're gonna learn these words Popeye one, two, three, four,
And he was like maybe one or two.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
He wasn't talking a lot.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
Matter of fact, I think he said one or two
words and then he completely stopped. And I believe also
when it comes to NOR divergence and students with learners
with autism, delayed speaking and also some of their motor
skills is one of the key or one identifiers that
they usually look for when they're screening kids for.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
NOR autism.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
So his learning style, of course, he loved blocks. He
loved building legos, electronics, any of that kind of stuff
that we could tear apart and put together. So I
often created all sorts of activities for us to do
in the summer where we were taking things apart, putting
things together. Many a day we tore up my mother's

(12:23):
kitchen while she was asleep. My mom worked nights and
my dad worked days, so while my mom was at
home sleeping during the day, me and my brother would
make plato in the kitchen and all sorts of stuff.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
But I feel for my mother, she had a lot
on her hands. Me and my brothers.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
I used to figure out ways to get into the
kitchen because they had a baby git to try to
keep us out. So before we would my mother would
go to sleep, I put a broom on the other
side of the kitchen, on the dining room area, and
I would make sure a chair was close enough in
breafix nook area so that I would get a chair
from the dining room area, then get the broom, which

(13:06):
were both on the other side of the baby gate,
and reach it over the Breafix nook to pull the
chair closer and then step over the baby gate. And
that's how ME and my brother would get into the
kitchen and start making plato and doing all this sort
of stuff. So he learned very much by doing, and
I was the only way I can engage him. And

(13:28):
if I wanted to play with my brother, I needed
to build something. I needed to make something. We needed
to be active, otherwise it wasn't gonna happen, and.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
You know that was a learning experience for you, and
that you know, the typical way of learning didn't work
for your brother, right, so it sounded like it was
tactile learning. It was more touching and doing and experimenting
and so oh so what what kind of disorder was it?

(14:06):
What was it? Categorized us?

Speaker 3 (14:09):
When he was younger, they originally were like his ADHD,
so they put him on that all. Then they were like,
it's they were thinking he had some kind of like
other I forget what was when he was like eight
or nine, But they eventually diagnosed him with Asperger's aspertures
because at the time they didn't consider aspert They considered
as spurtush to be a type of autism, but they

(14:31):
hadn't grouped them all together. He had been in special
education classes from the time he was in kindergarten all
the way through the rest of high school, and even
received services in partlan and college. His as I said
his focus was anything to do with buildings, sports, Pokemon,

(14:53):
and he was delayed when it came to language acquisition,
be it math or science. He could it think logically
about math and logically about concepts and he could talk
it with you somewhat, but he had to really show it.
That was his best way of experiencing the world was
to show it.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
Right. And and it's so, how how is it? How
are things for him in school?

Speaker 2 (15:23):
Things for him in school?

Speaker 3 (15:26):
So when I was a kid, I would, of course,
we were a couple of years apart, and so I
would be in one classroom and he'd be in another,
and I could hear him in my classroom when they
were he would get in trouble.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Be it's okay, take your time.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
He would get in trouble, and so I wish I
could have went in there to calm him down.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
What what are you hearing?

Speaker 3 (16:05):
He would get in trouble for not following through on
commands or directions and stuff like that. So he would
be like, please, please don't call my mama. Please please
don't call my mama, because.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
He didn't want to get in trouble. Of course, no
kid does. It's just how you.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
Interact with them, or when you interact with students with
learners with autism. It has to be nuanced. It can't
be done in anger. You have to be have a
lot of patience.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
And so.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
That time and that patience is something that is imperative
when you're working with that population.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
And I would imagine the same systemic issues that you
faced was even worse for him, right, and not getting
the attention too many kids. You focus on one thing
and they're trying to do five different things. So I
would imagine those challenges that made you hate school was

(17:09):
the same for your brother.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
Was that the case for the most part.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
Yes, when he got home, Oh gosh, he was getting its.
Gracious he figured out, of course, recording videos. You know
how people used to bootleg videos back in the day,
used to.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
Record the real He used to make duplicates of videos,
and he was doing that before he was like eight
or nine years old.

Speaker 3 (17:33):
He figured out how to boot leg videos. So you
was setting up and connecting multiple VCRs. He understood the
concept of the input of information, the output of information,
and which courts needed to go where. But when it
comes to being in the classroom, it sometimes wasting.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
So how did your your parents react to that?

Speaker 2 (18:03):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (18:04):
They were like.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
Most parents, like especially in most parents who have students,
our child who is struggling, especially if it's something that
they didn't struggle with, they don't know what to do.
They're scared and they're looking for advice and they're looking
for people to help them with that situation. And as
a parent, they're like, they see where they're They think

(18:26):
they know where their child should be, but they see
where they are and it makes them worried and they're
trying to figure out things. A sibling comes from a
different perspective. We only know our student, our sibling for
who they are. We had no concept of who they could,
who our parents wanted them to be. We just see
them for who they are. And so when it comes

(18:47):
to the parents, in their perspective, they're like, how do
I change my child sometimes to fit into society? But
the siblings perspective is like, my sibling is fine, that's
this is just who we are. How do we change
society to fit them?

Speaker 1 (19:04):
So your parents were more like there are more like, okay,
what how can how do we change our son? Yeah,
to fit what the teacher wants to.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
Fit, Yeah, what society needs him to be.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
Because they're thinking from an adult perspective, which I completely understand.
They are coming from the perspective of we need our
child to be able to maintain a job and work
in this community, and we know that society, especially coming
from a time where they were that My parents were
born in the sixties, so they understood that navigating this world,

(19:49):
there are rules that sometimes are unfair and their child
would be judged unwarrantly, and so they needed him to
be able to understand those rules, especially as a young
black male in the US. He needed to be understand
be able to interact with people who will sometimes just

(20:09):
view him from a perspective of a threat or basically
as somebody who doesn't have as much value as somebody
else where. He's always where he would have to prove himself,
and so they wanted him to be able to explain,
explain himself, and carry himself in a way that society
will be able to readily understand him.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
And did that work? Did that work for him?

Speaker 2 (20:35):
No?

Speaker 3 (20:35):
No?

Speaker 1 (20:37):
Why not? Let's elaborate on that. Why didn't it work?

Speaker 3 (20:42):
Because because of bias? Because when you're the original conception
of autism, and I think in general, when it comes
to the medical goal you're gonna give me, I'm gonna
go off here a little bit. So when it comes
to the medicalization of autism and other neurodivergent or they

(21:09):
call disorders, which I don't necessarily find this the right
word for it. I think differences is better. We're not
meant to all think alike, We're not meant to all
be alike. And some of the most profound things in
our society have come when people who are different have
basically stood in their differences and embraced who they are

(21:32):
and contributed from that perspective. So he wasn't going to
be somebody who wasn't going to have a net, who
had a general understanding of a lot of things and
could navigate and introduce interact with people in ways that
they wanted to.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
He had to be him. He had to be him.

Speaker 3 (21:54):
And it made him really good at shotput, It made
him really good at Pokemon, It made him really good
at interacting with people in a physical way. He was
his gift was body mechanics. His gift was unseeing how
things fit together. But when it came to interacting with

(22:15):
people in a social from a social dynamic, he was
going to struggle.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
And that's okay, and sometimes it takes it.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
People have to learn humility, and they also have to
learn to interact with people who like you, are different
from you. And that's not a bad thing. Society sometimes
should be forced to have to do that.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
To change society to fit you or to.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
Be able to interact and embrace more of who we are.
We don't see. Society is varied and it need and
it's supposed to be. And so when we look at
learners with autism, parents have a lot of parents often
will have a lot of fear because, as I said,

(23:07):
they want their child to be able to fit into society,
They want them to be a they want, they don't want.
They understand their child is going into a society that's
going to judge them and that will not will not
see them for who they are and who.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
They could be.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
And that's sometimes true, it is, it's very true. But
as a person and as a soul and as just
a human being, our greatest growth growth comes from when
we learn to like ourselves and we learn to accept
who we are and we work with.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
What we have been given.

Speaker 1 (23:45):
Right right to use to accept that. You know, children
different children have, they have certain gifts, right So like
the the regular, the mainstream way of understanding the world
may not fit for everybody.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
And it doesn't fit for most people entirely I told
I had a student once who was talking to me.
He was like, miss He was like, you're not gonna
like me.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
I was like, why I'm not.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Gonna like you? He was like, because I don't know people.

Speaker 1 (24:19):
This is just who I am.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
People just tend not to like me because I'm very
much myself. And I was like, let me tell you
something about people. Most people don't really like who they are,
so they're not gonna like people who are themselves.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
And he was like, okay. So I was like, all right,
let's go.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
You challenge that. You challenge that belief that he had.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Yeah, yeah, you have to.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
You have to. Yeah. So now what one How so
the time when you were hearing your brother on the
other side of the wall, how old was he at
the time? What great? What you said? Kindergarten? Right? I
was in.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
Fifth but he had been held back one year, so
he was in first. Yeah, because I was three.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (25:11):
We're three years apart. Oh my gosh, I'm getting old.
I'm forgetting years. We were three years apart. I was
in fifth grade and he was in first grade because
he had been held back, so he should have been
in second.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
But yeah, oh, why was he held back.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
Because in kinder they felt that he needed to repeat
another year to get to get caught up with his peers.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
And did he.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
That's something I would need to look at the data a.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
Little bit more, a little bit more, okay, So now,
how how did think did things improve as the grades progressed?
You know, first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade?
Did things improve? It all? With him?

Speaker 3 (26:00):
I think they improved when he was able to get
into pe and into sports.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
That's his buy in. His buy in was sports.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
And when it came to academics, if he couldn't pass,
he couldn't play.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
So he was like, I'm going to pass, okay.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
So something there was like an incentive for him to
do to do better. It was.

Speaker 3 (26:25):
It was an incentive and I so loved that about him,
because middle school and high school can be hard, especially
for neurodivergent students, because they're not socially in tune with
the rest of what the population is doing. So they're
always going to be viewed as odd In middle school
and high school kids, as they said, they can be

(26:46):
mean and so some kids would talk about them and
stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
Because he was a big boy legit. My brother was two.

Speaker 3 (26:53):
Hundred pounds, could bingch press four hundred pounds by the
time he was a freshman in high school.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
He was a big dude, and so they but he
was like a gentle giant.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
So people would I don't know if they got like
adrenaline rush just from being able to pick on somebody
who was bigger than them. So that is indeed what
some people would do in middle school and high school
and stuff like that. But he seemed when he was
in his zone in sports, he was oblivious to it.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
They did not matter.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
But when he like if he wasn't doing sports, he
would think about that sometimes because he did. He wanted
some kind of he wanted to have people who he
interacted with who saw him, and he did. He had
some friends who like a neighborhood friend who he grew
up with named Josh, who he loved dearly, and so

(27:51):
Josh would see him and had been friends with my
brother for most.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
Of their lives.

Speaker 3 (27:56):
So he he helped give my brother and like with
my brother to have balance, and I was I'm internally
grateful for that.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
So he so he had a he had friends, he
had a support system, he had an outlet, right so
he was being bullied unfortunately, and Jim was his outlet.
And it's it's that tactile thing. It's moving his body,
it's expelling that energy. So I would think something like

(28:27):
that would be beneficial for for something like him.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
It was.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
It was very beneficial.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
So was he was he talking? Was he mute?

Speaker 2 (28:40):
He was talking? You would tell.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
You could tell that he had it by his speech,
his rate of speech, very slow, less intonation.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
What was I saying? Like very I forgot the word
that aligns with it.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
But the character, the boisterousness, the animation, that kind of
stuff was not what you were going to get. And
it was very blunt, very matter of fact, which I loved.
You can you always knew where you stood.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
Let's see.

Speaker 3 (29:20):
So he was able to communicate, he didn't, As I said,
he didn't learn to really talk though, until he's like
three or four.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
So it took some time with that.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
And another part of autism that it's not even I
don't know, it's not autism itself, it's just that they
also have higher rates of other mental illnesses. And eventually
he also had some fuck touches of other mental illnesses
as well, like like what like hallucinations and stuff like that.

(29:53):
I often think of the movie when was it Beautiful Mind?

Speaker 1 (29:56):
John Nash, Yeah, yeah, Russell Crowe, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Awesome movie. And when it comes to learners who have.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
Autism, they actually have slightly higher or elevated rates of schizophrenia,
especially as they get older.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
So was your brother diagnosed, Let's get up front.

Speaker 3 (30:20):
He started well, I don't know if he was ever
formally diagnosed because at the time I was young, I
was in high school and being a child myself, I
wasn't included in the doctor's visits and stuff like that.
But my brother would often be afraid when we were

(30:42):
when we gets about eleven or twelve, he would be afraid.
He would say that voices were he could hear voices,
and that they some were good, somewhere bad, he would say,
and it made him scared. And so as he got older,
it would periodically get better and worse, better and worse.

(31:05):
And I don't know if he got to a point
where it was by the end he was content he
had found some kind of balance, But I know that
that was something he struggled with for quite a while.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
And I mean, so the autism, the ADHD on top
of schizophrenia, on top of being bullied on top of
it was like one thing after another.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Yeah, yeah, he was.

Speaker 3 (31:40):
He was a lot stronger character than like he was
physically strong, but really and truly he was emotionally strong
as well. Was emotionally strong as well.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
So how is he doing? So Pe just kind of
kicked it around high school? So the great how was
he doing academically in high school?

Speaker 2 (32:00):
With the p it was good.

Speaker 3 (32:03):
The only thing was test he hated, like standardized test.
He would have a utter miltdown, especially when it came
to math.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
He hated the test.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
And it's because they put so much pressure on one
grade and he understood that if he didn't do well
on this, then he would have repercussions on him being
able to attain thing or like attain a degree or
stuff like that. Well, he was also in special education,
so of course there are meetings that they can have
that it can exempt them from the scores. But each

(32:37):
one of those tests, especially as he failed it, he
saw it as he failed again. It was another reminder
of how he was deemed insufficient by society.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
So that thought of I'm a failure again, right, I'm
being yelled at. I mean, I don't know if he
was being yelled at high school, but that when it
plagues you, I think, when you're constantly reprimanded, and you

(33:11):
have parents that are trying to change you to fit
to fit an outside mold, and then there's the other
racial bias that you brought up about being a black male,
So all all these outside pressures plague you and you
end up having these these thoughts in your head.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
I also say that eventually, like.

Speaker 3 (33:40):
My parents came to understand more of the situation, in
the sense of they understood that athletics was his thing.
Shot put what is his thing? Give him a shot
put Give him a discus you wanted to talk about
shot putting discus? He can break down the mechanics of it.
He was talking about the physics of it when he

(34:02):
hadn't even taken physics. So they understood that that was
his passion. Now do I think it bothered them that
they knew that he was going he may have to
may struggle a little bit with everybody else on the outside.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yes, but they saw that that was his love, so
they all gung hold by it.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
My dad gets to take him to the shop, put
in discuss they go to the track needs and all
that kind of stuff, and that really helped I. I
it's sometimes easier to focus on what you don't have
and then to look at what you do.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
I laugh now, but what do you what do you
tell us more about that? What do you mean by that?

Speaker 3 (34:55):
I mean that the human mind is the human mind
has a negativity BI and we want to focus on
not even want to. It's almost like an evolutionary need
to focus on the negative things because those negative things
can prevent us from having security or safety or food.

(35:16):
We don't want to be excluded from the group. But
it's sometimes to the detriment of appreciating the things that
we do. And my brother and I often used to
argue about that because sometimes he would really get down
on himself and I hated it.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
I was like, no, you will not, we will not.
You will not like let this beat you. You won't.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
And I remember telling him, like, you have so much.
You have me, you have Mama, you have our mom
our dad. They're providing all this for you, and that
like myared to appreciate it. And at the age I

(36:02):
didn't understand negativity biased. I didn't understand the complexities of
everything that he had.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Been going through at one time.

Speaker 3 (36:09):
As you were just talking about, like when you listed
like that, I'm like, oh, yeah, that is a lot
for a kid, But I'm looking at it now, and
especially as he got older, I was like, Okay, so
he did get what I was telling them.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
You explained it, and you know he did. He understood
in his own life. Yeah, wonderful. So what what happened
to us is high school? So what happened after high school?
Did he go to college? How did things go after that?

Speaker 2 (36:45):
He did go to college.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
He went to college at Northeast lake View, a community
college kinesiology of course, surprise rise.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
So what was that like for him? College is a
totally different landscape than I saw.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
Math was his main struggle. Oh, math, Math was a struggle.

Speaker 3 (37:12):
And at the time I was also in school, I think,
or was I a teacher by then? Let's see, he
was eighteen nineteen nineteen two. Yeah, I was in my
early teaching years, and when he first started college, I
was in my last year of college. So I will

(37:36):
say the twenties our time were you're you're kind of
self absorbed. I wasn't really paying attention to what was
going on at home, because I'm like, I got my grades,
got this new job, I gotta do this, I gotta
do that, and everything's about striving for that security and

(37:58):
that stability, which that's the stage you're at. And it's
partly that way for evolutionary reasons, partly that way for
social reasons. So I didn't notice that when it came
to math. That was his struggle in college because professors
aren't usually very accommodating or willing to bend how they

(38:22):
teach or how they present information to help somebody. They
sometimes they will be if you go to their office hours,
but not all are. And so he founded he had
He started off at Texas State, which was a larger school,
but then he went back. He came back and went
to Polo Alto. And when he was at Texas State,

(38:44):
he didn't live on campus. He legit used to ride
the bus when he had the bus from San Antonio
to Sant Marcus to go to class and then rode
the bus back home, not the bus back home, and that.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
Was like a semester too.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
And then he went to Powo Alto where the classes
are smaller and he was able to get that one
on one that he needed.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
So things changed. So he originally went to Texas.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
Texas State University.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
Of State, and I was a much bigger school. And
so wait, why sorry, I might have missed it. Why
didn't that one work out? Why did he switch to
the other school?

Speaker 2 (39:24):
Math?

Speaker 1 (39:25):
It was math.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
He struggled with math.

Speaker 3 (39:29):
And also he was commuting from Antonio to San Marcus
on the bus. He would ride the the we had
the there was a bus that went from San Antonio
to San Marcus and he ride that the commute.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
Okay, yeah, So when you say struggle with math, what
did that look like?

Speaker 3 (39:48):
It looked like he had homework. He looked at the
numbers and he didn't know what any of it meant.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
He was like, what are they trying to say? I
don't understand what's going on?

Speaker 1 (39:58):
And so.

Speaker 3 (40:03):
He needed somebody to explain it from a perspective that
was relevant to him. So at the time, I did
it periodically, but not very much.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
Because, of course, as I said, I was in my
own little world.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
It was hard for you to be as involved with them.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah. Yeah, I was in my own little world. My
dad helped a lot years later, I know I was like,
we have all these math books all around because he
was trying to learn that too, and.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
I was like, bless him all that. Listen, sometimes you
gotta get all those books. But yeah, you know, I'm
College is a different beast, right, because it's more you're
expected to figure it out on your own, right, as
opposed to high school was kind of there were things
in place, like you know, with teachers and they paired

(41:07):
you with other students. But college is more of like
you have to take more of the initiative. Right, did
he get those accommodations.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
He had to fight for him, but he got them.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
They had to fight for him because well, luckily he
had him in high school. I the learners who don't
have the accommodations in high school in grade school, and
their parents are like, I don't want them to be.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
Excluded.

Speaker 3 (41:36):
I don't want them to feel different, even though they
are aware that their child may have ADHD or autism
when they get to college because of the lack of
structure and because of the intrinsic executive function deficient deficiencies
that comes with with some of these nor divergence. Yeah,

(41:59):
they struggle and they can't get accommodations because they don't
have any previous history of it. So luckily for him,
he had those accommodations on file. However, of course it's
still a struggle because some of them will be like, well,

(42:19):
you're autistic, but are you that autistic? Like how what
level of autism do you have? And people don't recognize
that autism is a sensory processing disorder and that intellectual
their intellectual capabilities and their sensory processing disorder are two

(42:41):
very different things that come together to create a whole
like lit me of different things. So when we're talking
about like people automatically think that because they're autistic, they
may not be able to express themselves. And if you're
able to express themselves, you're not that autistic.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
It's not the same.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
It's not the same thing.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
So it sounds like they didn't even want to give
it to him, or they were trying to give him
as as as least as.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
Possible basically, yeah, which, yeah, wow, that's.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
A whole that's a whole other ball game, all right.
But he got everything anyway. But so even with the accommodations,
he still wasn't getting it. He still wasn't getting the math.
It didn't help out. No, he needed he.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
Needed more one on one, He needed more personal. He
needed somebody to be able to break it down to him.
From what his understanding is.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
Yeah, were there So did he make the attempts to
do that while he was at while he was at
the Texas State.

Speaker 3 (43:53):
Yeah, he would go to tutoring, he would, He didn't.
I don't know he didn't understand how to learn because
they often don't teach you how you learn.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
They don't.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
One of the travesties I feel when it comes to
education is we don't focus in on telling learners or
helping learners figure out how you learn and to understand
that learning is a process. It's a biological, neurochemical process
that you have to You can have some way in

(44:25):
creating the mental environment for you to retain the information.
There are things we can do that are quite purposeful
to help you hold onto information. But we don't often teach.
We don't let the man on a secret.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
Mmmm that you know that and especially in college being
a lot, you're in a big he's in a bigger school,
you know, with all the it's like three hundred students
in a lecture hall, right or even worse so if
you're struggling already with twenty, imagine you know three hundred.

(45:02):
But all right, so I was like, you know what
the school and help will be. He switched over to
a community college. Mm hmm, So that you said was
much better for him? Yeah? It was okay?

Speaker 3 (45:16):
How how so smaller, less communing. Also the staff, the professors,
they loved working with him. We loved working with him,
and he loved he loved working with them too.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
So it was a win win for all around.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
And how was the math?

Speaker 3 (45:41):
The math became easier? It was he could understand it
more so, said my brother. Was he could explain and
shot put and discuss the physics of it. So before
he had even taken physics, he can understand conceptually some
of these more advanced things in physics that it's all

(46:03):
based in embedded in math.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
You need math to prove physics.

Speaker 3 (46:08):
And so they were able to come from the perspective
of concrete things. Show him this math in a concrete representation.
Then you can go to the representational or on in
numbers and charts and stuff like that, and then they
can eluciate extrapolate that to abstract understanding of the concepts,

(46:30):
which is something I so genuinely believe in when it
comes to teaching in general, any concept, especially with neurodivergent learners. Concrete, representational,
abstract CRA. I didn't know that it's what was called
until years later, but it was basically how I learned
how to teach myself.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
So it sounded like, so the math was the same
as tax of state, but it was taught differently. Yeah,
it was. It was the same math course. Yeah, all right,
it was just taught differently. So it was taught more.
You said it was taught more conceptually.

Speaker 3 (47:15):
Yeah, well, concrete would take they would take the numbers,
They would take the concepts of operations and apply it
to a real life situation. One one pen plus two pins,
you'll get your total of two pins in one hand,
like one one equals two. But you have to do

(47:35):
that with algebra, you have to do that with trigonometry.
They have to be able to see the triangles, like
go out and physically walk a triangle that is five
foot by six feet and then walk the hypot news,
which is which I don't even want to do that
math in my head, twenty five plus thirty six equals

(47:55):
what was it fifty sixty two or rout of sixty two,
you would be between seven and eight closer to eight
eight point seven or eight point eight something.

Speaker 2 (48:08):
So, oh, I wonder.

Speaker 1 (48:12):
All right, so things got a lot better. So you you,
I mean you, so you. So by the time he
got to college, so you changed what was around him. Right,
So we were talking about, you know, we're trying to
change him to fit what society wanted. But in changing

(48:38):
and change, you changed his environment in order to change him. Yeah. Right,
And so you changed the school you got you put
him in a community college, and like miraculously he improved. Right.
So it's it wasn't so much like what did you

(49:00):
do wrong? Right? Like why why are you not understanding
what the professor is saying? Right? So it's more of
let's take him out of this school and move him
to another school. So you you pretty much it sounded
like you focused on what he well, not you, but
I guess you and the collective you focus on more

(49:22):
on what he wanted and how he learned, and not
forcing him to stay at the school and finish it out.
But actually, like, okay, it's time to switch him. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So now let's so I want to make sure we
kind of pivot to you so now in all of this,

(49:45):
because this is a journey not just for your brother
but for you, right because you're the one. It sounds
like you're the one all up in his business. Right.
So what how does all of this influence you and
in terms of tutoring, teaching, how you end up ended
up where you are today?

Speaker 3 (50:07):
Oh so how I ended up where I am today
is largely influenced by him, my own experiences as a
student and a learner, and then also being a parent.
So as you heard my brother and his struggles with
school and how they get to me, I it touched

(50:29):
me on.

Speaker 2 (50:29):
An emotional level. I hated seeing him struggle like that.
Then when it came to my own school was who
as I said, I love to learn but hated school.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (50:44):
I was tested multiple times and tested a couple of
times for special education when it comes to reading in English, because.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
I get struggled with reading in English.

Speaker 3 (50:53):
I struggled with the conceptualization of these letters and what
these letters mean and trying to like decipher through it.
So they put me in special education education classes in
elementary school, and then they took me out because they.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
Were like, she's too smart, she's getting it too quickly,
so she doesn't need this.

Speaker 3 (51:15):
Went through school elementary school and be student kind of
like I learned to play the game. I learned how
to get things done given what they want, so I
can get my grade and be.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Done and do something else.

Speaker 3 (51:26):
Middle school of course much different, beast, eight classes, a
lot more kids changing, cognitively hated middle school. I'm socially awkward,
always have been, because I have my interest. I have
those things that I love to talk about. I was
raised around a sibling who is autistic. That's my normal

(51:50):
concept of how to interact with people. You find what
you love, you dwelled into it, and then you go
from there. But that's not how everybody else is. And
also what they love, maybe especially in middle school, boys
parties makeup, and I was like, my brother was not
about makeup.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
He was.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
That wasn't gonna happen. He loved me like to eat,
and so I didn't know how to cook. A matter
of fact, I used food as bribery multiple days. I
was like we I once bribed him with smothered chicken,
mashed potatoes, and mashed potatoes. Oh and mashed potatoes for
I was like, help me build this tent in the backyard.

Speaker 2 (52:33):
Said what you're gonna do? I was like, I'm gonna
make your mother chicken and mashed potatoes. It's like that.

Speaker 3 (52:37):
So so I could bribe them with food. So I
knew how to cook. I knew how to do that
kind of stuff. Middle school kids aren't there, That's not
what they're They're not talking about recipes, they're not talking
about I love physics, I like biology, I like chemistry.

(52:58):
They're not talking about those subjec like that, And so
I was socially awkward. Also, I knew I wanted to
be a teacher and also a doctor. I wanted to
do both, and I still do. I haven't given up
on the doctor thing. I'm just pacing myself. So I

(53:20):
struggled largely because I had undiagnosed ADHD.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
I once had. There was a.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
Clinician who once saw my brother and he asked it
also talk to me, And years later I found out
that he had told my parents that he thinks that
I had anxiety and depression and maybe or like depression,
maybe like ADHD or something like that. Because of there
were times in middle school legit. I was suicidal middle school,

(53:51):
high school, college, and it would happen periodically. But I
felt that I had too much of a responsibility to
those who were in my serf, well, my loved ones,
to even think about it. Like I was like, who's
going to take care of my brother? Who's going to
make sure this stuff.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
Is taken care of?

Speaker 1 (54:08):
And so he was your whole world.

Speaker 3 (54:11):
Yeah, it was who's going to make sure that everybody
else is taken care of? So that was my perspective
and how I went through school. I was in school,
and when I recognized when I was like in middle
school or so that what happened to my brother when
my parents passed away. I need to graduate. I need

(54:34):
to get these grades in order to make money so
that I can help support him. If I don't have
the money, I'm not going to be able to do that.
So I focused a lot more in on school and
I figured out what do I need to learn this
information so that I can get decent grades.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
I need to be able to get good enough grades
so that I can.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
I wasn't trying to be like the top of the class.
I was like, I don't want to do all that
to spend twenty four to seven thinking about this stuff.
I liked reading already, I liked I figured out that
a little bit earlier, if I learned how to read,
I can learn more, and I started reading about goodness, gracious,

(55:17):
all sorts of things. Sci fi books were my favorite.
Jurassic Park the book way different than the movie. I
read Silence of the Lambs too. I probably shouldn't have
read that one. That one really still creeps me out.
But that was in middle school. I had a pretty
good vocabulary and reading ability. It's just that I couldn't

(55:38):
focus when it came to class until I had a purpose.
I needed purpose, and I also had to learn to
develop organizational strategies, so I did. I figured out that
studying cramming doesn't work for me unless I'm talking it through.

(56:00):
I have to have somebody, some kind of dialogue, either
with myself or someone else, and then the information sticks.
So I'd read for like twenty thirty minutes, and then
I'd be like, okay, so what was that I just read?
I read about this, this and this and this, and
if I couldn't recite that information back in my head,
I knew I didn't learn it. So I would read

(56:21):
that's sort short wave again and then recited back in
my back right, cited to myself without looking at the page.
What was the gist of that information? And if I
could do that, then I knew I understood it. And
also I had to connect it to things that I loved.
So I did that, learned how to learn, and that
helped me through most of high school, most of college,

(56:45):
and eventually, though I think it was my last year
of college, I was like, this is the struggle I'm having.
I had too many things on my plate and I
was still having trouble with thingsxiety sometimes or not. I
wasn't anxiety was depression. I wasn't as much anxious as

(57:06):
I was like thinking about mm hmm, what would happen
if I didn't succeed, So I guess that's like a
form of anxiety, but also depressed with other things that
were going on.

Speaker 1 (57:25):
So but.

Speaker 3 (57:28):
Eventually I talked to a position and they actually put
me on adderall and it helped me focus and I
didn't have to work as hard to study, which offo
freed up some of my time.

Speaker 2 (57:39):
Helped a lot.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
So you you went through a bit yourself, all right,
I mean you well, you said undiagnosed ADHD. So were
you ever officially diagnosed?

Speaker 2 (57:56):
Oh yeah, oh yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:59):
When I got to college, and it's like that was
an easy test to pass. That was the easiest test
I'd taken in a long time.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
I was like, yeah, I do that. What do you mean?

Speaker 2 (58:10):
Looking for my keys every day is not what everybody does.

Speaker 3 (58:17):
Trouble with organization, of course, but also the part about
being seeing it's not an attention deficit. You are paying
attention to all of it, and all of that. It
was like everything from the water dripping in the bathroom
to the music playing in the background in the room

(58:38):
next door, to the fact that I need to okay,
I need to go to H and B because I
need to get this, this, this and this and all
of them are on my mind at one time that
I can't focus on anyone.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
You're focusing on multiple things at one.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
Time mm hmm, paying attention to all of it, and
it makes it hard to really get anything done unless
it's something I love. Hyper Focused is one of the
reasons I did not become a physician when I was young.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
I love the body, I love.

Speaker 3 (59:09):
Talking about the brain, I love reading about it. I
started reading medical books when I was in elementary school,
high school, elementary school, middle school because I loved the
concept and so book that other people may turn as.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
Dry, that was my thing.

Speaker 3 (59:24):
I was like, oh, please, can I have a neuropsych
psychological neuropsychology book? Like, give that to me, neuropsycho pharmacology.

Speaker 2 (59:31):
I want to read that. That's my jam. I love it,
but I'll.

Speaker 3 (59:37):
Focus and on to the point of detriment to my
social interactions.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
Right, So you so you would focus on which is
another common thing and which is a common thing with
you know, people with ADHD, they focus on one thing
and everything else just kind of fall to the wayside.
Oh man, So you had your own academic struggles and

(01:00:05):
you know, and your brother had his own struggles and
you were taking care of him at the same time.
So it's like you, you know, you had your own
issues with learning, and then your brother has his issues
when you're trying to help them with his issues while
you have your own issues. So it's there's a lot

(01:00:26):
of piling. I'm hearing there's a lot of piling from you,
a lot of piling from your brother. There's a lot
of piling going on. So now, I mean, how do
you how do you manage it all?

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
My purpose?

Speaker 3 (01:00:43):
I believe that life is a experience for the soul.
My body is a vessel that one day it has
to expire. That's just the name of the game.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
It has to end.

Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
And there are things that my spirit or my soul
wants to accomplished before that incomes. I want to be
a teacher. I want to be a physician. I love
those things. I love teaching people in the sense of
I like the communication. I want them to grow in
their understanding and likewise I grow in my understanding of things.

(01:01:18):
I believe that's where the beauty of life lies in
seeing things and how just the beauty of its Like
the atom to me is absolutely amazing, and how it
interacts and creates the physical part of the physical phenomena
that we feel and touch and be and I'm like,
it's amazing to me. And I love that form that

(01:01:41):
part of education. And then when we talk about the body, Oh,
our bodies are.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
Even each moment that we're living, you're going through so
many different biochemical processes and making new cells, and most
of the time it's going correctly. You have millions of
opportunities each day for something to go wrong, and most
times it doesn't.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
So science was your I know, science was your favorite subject.
Science was your was your outlet? Sound like it sounds
like yeah, all right, so we uh we barely even
talked about your tutoring business. But I mean, I'm just

(01:02:29):
getting the sense of I think I remember you. You're
telling me that the inspiration for your the way you
frame your tutoring business, the way it like the subjects
you tutor, and how you tutor my my, is it
safe to say the way that you tutor your students

(01:02:54):
you take a more I guess hands on. I'm just
thinking like with the experiences of your brother and even yourself,
I know it our past influences our present in the future, right,
And so do you find that with your students you
take more of a hands on approach, of a more

(01:03:18):
demonstrative approach to to well, I'm out to the way
that you tutor things or subjects, Yes, I do.

Speaker 3 (01:03:29):
I try to start off with giving them a concrete
representation of what it is the concept that we're going
to go into, like having them physically acted out, like
having them example, like when I was in the classroom
teaching biology, we were thinking about talking about nerve impulses,
and so they were the nerve and each one was
transmitting the information from their dendrites, shiming it down to

(01:03:50):
the axa and kicking it out to the next neuron next.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
Door, which is another person who their dendrits had to
accept the information.

Speaker 3 (01:03:59):
So I if I can't make it concrete that way,
I'll try to have them walk it out. I'll do something.
I have to make it concrete. And it's such a
it's a passion.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
So I am.

Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
Even if it doesn't appear to be a solution to it,
I'm like, I have to find a solution.

Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
I do.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
That's just how my brain is now set. If it
seems like it's something that can't be that is so
abstract that it can't be represented concretely, I'm like, bet,
I'll take that challenge.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
Let's find another way so that you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
Look, you look for a way you because there's multiple
ways to you know, get to the same solution. And
you know, and nowadays where there's all these different methods
and there's all these different ways to teach one thing,
you take more of a listen the original way. It
doesn't work. But you know, let's do another way. Yeah

(01:04:57):
that works the same way. Yeah. All right, So we
barely even gotten to your company. So I gotta bring
you back on for a part two. But fortunately I
gotta start to wind things down. So now on hot topics,
I like to ask my guests to share words of wisdom.

(01:05:21):
So do you have any words of wisdom that you'd
like to share with our audience?

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
Behind your fears is your greatest growth. I have a
fear of public speaking. I have a fear of failure,
and so try it. I try to put myself in
positions where I have to public speak. I try to
put myself in positions where I have to face my fears,
because the only thing.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
I truly fear is living a life well lived.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
Sorry, you fear living a life will lived, not live?
Not not what you fear living a life not well lived? Gotcha?
All right? All right, well listen, I gotta bring you
back for a part two. I feel like we we
we we touched something and we just went deep. Uh

(01:06:19):
you know, that's that's how things roll here on hot topics.
Sometimes we just go left right. So I gotta, you know,
bring you on for a part two of this conversation
to really get into your big but I mean, but
this is the foundation for your business, right, So but
we gotta I gotta bring you back on for part

(01:06:39):
two to really get into the business part of it all.
But until then, thank you for coming on Hot Topics.
So let's get to your promotion, all right, you guys. So,
oh we we we do a lot. I'm feeling a lot.

(01:07:00):
I'm feeling a lot. But yes, it is promo time,
you guys. So Sharanda, you can find her in many
different places, so you can go to her website to
learn more about her tutoring company. It is enriched Ology
Tutoring dot com, so make sure you guys check that out.

(01:07:21):
She has her personal Facebook and LinkedIn is her name
Sharanda Smith, so make sure you follow her on both
of those accounts. She also has a Facebook business. Well
I kind of looked it all together. So she has
a Facebook page, she has an Instagram and a YouTube

(01:07:41):
all with the same name in Richology Tutoring. So I
know that's a mouthful, so let me just say that again.
So she has her personal Facebook and personal LinkedIn It
is her name Sharanda Smith. And then she has a business, Facebook, Instagram,
and YouTube with the company name in Ritrology Tutoring, So

(01:08:02):
I encourage you guys to follow her on all those platforms,
go to her website if you're interested in her services. Uh,
and to learn more about her of course. Uh. So
let's let's talk up your business. Uh, what do you tutor?
How do you how do you tutor? Et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 3 (01:08:22):
Yes, in Ritrology Tutoring is my third baby. I have
two at home, so this is my other one I'm
working on. So it's passion project. We are focused on
helping nor divergent learners become confident and confident in math.
I use a c r A for our framework where
we start with what is concrete and we use science,

(01:08:44):
We use kinesiology, we use the body, we use experiments
to help make math real, and then we go to
representational about using pictures and using diagrams, and then we
elucidate that to the abstract where the kids can take
that understanding and now apply it to a multitude of things.

(01:09:05):
So we work that way because I found it was
well being in the classroom for so many years, didn't
have enough time to really get to everybody and so
we personalize that learning to help engage nor divergent learners
in their interest and make math concrete, representational, and abstract
so it can.

Speaker 1 (01:09:23):
Be understandable, beautiful, and what socials math and science you tutor?

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
Yes, English is not my thing.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
Stick to your strengths, girl. All levels of math.

Speaker 3 (01:09:38):
I focus in on middle school through high school. So
I am looking to expand though. I've had some students
who are now aging out and they're going about to
go into college years and they're like, hey, and you
still tutor me. So I'm soon we'll be hiring and
looking for other people to help me out for the
upper levels and some of.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
The young you may have to targetting all them books.
I was like, oh, okay, wait, wait, I gotta teach myself.
I teach you, okayol oh, I mean there's a remedial
math in college, so you know it depends. But yeah,
and with science, it's with sciences. Ooh.

Speaker 2 (01:10:16):
I love all the sciences.

Speaker 3 (01:10:17):
As I said, I started reading medical books in middle school,
so physics is one I really love. Chemistry is one
that I learned to love, especially after teaching it biology.
Let's see when it comes to college. I've tutored up
to college chemistry. I haven't tutored college O Kim, which

(01:10:41):
I'd rather do O Kim than tutor it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:44):
I don't know, all right? And are you in person?

Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
Virtual in person and virtual in person ware in person
in San Antonio, Texas?

Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
All right, there, listeners, watchers, if you happen to be
in San Antonio, Texas, hit up Sharanda. Uh so there
you go. All right? Well, so in person, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (01:11:11):
Do you in virtual too?

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
And virtual you go out to them or you.

Speaker 3 (01:11:16):
Have a.

Speaker 1 (01:11:17):
Tutoring center. How does the in person work.

Speaker 3 (01:11:20):
In San Antonio? I'm freshly started, so I go to them.
I'm like, public libraries are awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
Let's use that.

Speaker 3 (01:11:27):
Let's go to public libraries every once in a while,
meet at people's homes, but it's usually after we've met
a couple of times at the library and we have
established some kind of relationship with from there.

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):
But yeah, an online everywhere else?

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
Yes, team team libraries here, awesome, awesome, awesome. All right,
So you you guys heard it. So that information, of course,
is on your screen right now scrolling down below. But
if you are listening to this on a podcast, all
this information is in the description with the direct links

(01:12:03):
to the accounts, So make sure you guys follow, follow, follow, follow, follow.
All right, Sharonda, thank you again for coming on Hot Topics.
I appreciate you being here.

Speaker 2 (01:12:17):
I appreciate you inviting me. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
Yeah, I gotta have you on. I feel like we
just scratched the surface. But we gotta do this again.
All right, so I'm gonna put you backstage, so your
your time is done. You can breathe now, so I'll
put you backstage. Okay, all right, beautiful, beautiful, all right,
excuse me. All right, you guys, we just we just

(01:12:43):
scratched the surface. I was like, oh, we didn't even
get to the actual tutoring setup. But listen, sometimes things
just go left on Hot Topics. So that's how things well.
Sometimes you just gotta roll with the punches. But but that,
of course, that gives me another excuse to bring her
back on. So there you go. Check look out for

(01:13:03):
part two, you guys to this conversation. But yes, but
before we get there, it is self promote time. So
let me just take this moment to remind you about
the powers that be behind this podcast. So Hot Topics

(01:13:24):
podcast is produced by my tutoring company, A Step Ahead
Tutoring Services. So you know it's I know, it's like, wait,
why do you have another entrepreneur on your show when
you have your own tutoring company. Listen, there's plenty of
us to go around. So I love bringing on other
you know, tutors to my platform too, So so you

(01:13:51):
know what's out there, right, And we all have our
own origin stories, right, So I definitely like to share
other stories as well, and this is the platform to
do that, to share stories. But yes, so, but I
have my own tutoring company, A Step Ahead Tutoring Services.

(01:14:14):
The information is on the screen right now. But if
you well, she's in San Antonio, Texas. If you're a local,
if you happen to be in New York City or
Nasau County, Long Island, I do come out to you
in person, like I said, team libraries, but also to
the home as well. So if you are if you

(01:14:37):
happen to be in the five boroughs of New York
City and Nasau County, Long Island, we offer in home
tutoring services and in person tutoring services. You can learn
more about that. Our website is www dot A Step
Ahead Tutoring Services dot com. You could also follow us

(01:14:58):
on our multiple accounts across social media. We're on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn,
where else, YouTube, TikTok, event, Bright, WhatsApp and just I
did say LinkedIn already, We're on LinkedIn, so make sure
you follow us across our multiple platforms. That information, of

(01:15:18):
course is on the bottom of the screen right now.
But again, if you're listening on a podcast, that information
is in the description, so make sure you check it out.
But I mean it's a safe bet. You could just
type in a Step Ahead Tutoring Services and we'll pop up.
Just look for the pencil with the gray and black tip.
That is us. So that's the in person tutoring local.

(01:15:42):
But we also do virtual tutoring as well, so if
you are not in those or even if you are
in New York City, Nasau County, we do virtual tutoring
as well, and we also go across the United States,
so Suffolk County. Sorry, we in person sessions are on

(01:16:02):
hold at the moment, so I encourage you to seek
our virtual services, but that website again to get all
that information www dot a Step Ahead Tutoring Services dot com.
And I also encourage you to follow me personally Gabrielle Critchlow.
You could follow me on Facebook and Instagram. The account

(01:16:24):
name is Gabrielle dot Critchlow, and you can follow me
on my personal LinkedIn, which is Gabrielle hyphen Critchlow. So
make sure you pay attention to those subtle punctuation differences.
But you can also follow me personally as well, and
I encourage you to do that as well. And one
more thing before we run away, I encourage you guys

(01:16:46):
to leave your feedback about today's episode. I cannot stress
this enough to feed the robots that is the algorithm.
I am asking you to just take five three to
five minutes leave your comment in the comment section or
in the common thread. If you're listening on a podcast,

(01:17:09):
depending on which platform, so it could be Spotify, Apple Podcasts,
it could be Speaker Good pods. A lot of them
have those comments sections now, so you can just leave
your comments there and also drop a rating there as well. So, however,

(01:17:29):
you are taking in the sound of my voice, whether
you are hearing me speak or whether you are watching
me speak, take three to five minutes leave your comments
in the comment section or in the common thread. So
the more comments you leave, the more feedback you give,
the more that this episode will circulate on social media,

(01:17:52):
because that is how social media works. It rewards popularity.
So the more you comment, the more this episode will
circulate in the world that is social media. So I
encourage you guys to leave your feedback in the comment
section below, below, blow below, or on the side wherever

(01:18:14):
it is. But leave your feedback, you guys, leave your comments.
Did you love it? Did you hate it? Do you
have your own stories you want to share? Feedback is king,
Feedback is gold. So I encourage you guys to do that.
All right, you guys, and that is it. Thank you
for joining me on another episode of Hot Topics. I

(01:18:37):
look forward to you joining me on the next episode.
Thank you guys, and now I am signing off. Byeing

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