Every Wednesday, Manal opens Zoom to meet with her student. This week, it’s a thirteen-year-old girl from Afghanistan. She starts the session by greeting the student in their native language. “Salam Jamila!* How was school today?”  

Manal believes that tutoring becomes a more meaningful experience when both student and tutor feel comfortable enough to share a piece of themselves in the session. She looks forward to Wednesday evenings on Zoom – not necessarily to the math homework she’ll be helping a student with, but what the student will teach her. When she logs on, she finds herself asking, “Who am I going to meet today? What am I going to learn from them?”  

Manal first volunteered with refugees while living in Spain, providing assistance with job applications to individuals from Iraq and Syria. She found the experience humbling, and was deeply inspired by the resilience and bravery of the refugees she served. When Manal moved to the DC area, she searched for opportunities to work with refugees here and connected with the IRC in Silver Spring.   

 

Manal volunteers with the IRC’s after school tutoring program, which provides academic support to middle and high school refugee youth in Maryland. Tuesday through Thursday, IRC staff match students with volunteer tutors like Manal, who meet for an hour and a half in one-on-one breakout rooms on Zoom to do homework and practice English.  

Herself an immigrant from Pakistan, Manal feels her cultural background helps her connect with students, many of whom are from Afghanistan.  John, an IRC staff member who facilitates the tutoring program, says, “Manal is always willing to go the extra mile and make lessons engaging.” As an example, Jamila and Manal spend the first few minutes of the evening’s session chatting about what foods they like to eat during Eid, the holiday commemorating the end of Ramadan. It’s one of the ways Manal creates a comfortable learning environment and helps the students practice English using a topic they’re excited to talk about. Then they turn to Jamila’s homework for the day, algebra.    

When she started tutoring, Manal only signed up to teach subjects she was fully confident in. But she soon learned that you don’t need total command of a subject to make an impact. “When you admit to a student that you’re not an expert, they tend to relax. You become a fellow learner, trying to solve the problem with them.” It also signals to the students that it’s OK to not know something, because that’s when true learning happens.   

For Manal, subject knowledge is secondary for a tutoring session to be successful. What’s most important is the willingness to be there for the student in what they need that day.  

 

*The student’s name has been changed to protect their privacy.