Throughout the past school year Rioghna Pittock, a second-year University of Chicago College student, worked with local elementary school students at Ariel Community Academy weekly as a tutor and teaching assistant with UChicago’s Neighborhood Schools Program (NSP).
NSP connects University students like Pittock with local schools and community sites to support K-12 student success. University students work as paid employees or volunteers in a variety of roles across these settings.
At Ariel in the city’s North Kenwood neighborhood, Pittock mostly assisted seventh and eighth grade English teacher Jesse Levinson, acting as an extra set of hands and working with students who need additional support in small groups. Pittock might help with a writing or reading assignment or focus on vocabulary by posting words in different corners of the classroom and encouraging students to correctly identify nouns, adjectives, and verbs by running to the right spot (where candy prizes were often waiting).
“Rioghna’s been really helpful because every student in the class is at a different level and the hardest thing about teaching, honestly, is meeting everyone’s individual level,” Levinson said. “So, any chance we get to have small group instruction going on is so great.”
Levinson also appreciates how just spending time with a college student and getting a sense of college life can have a positive impact on his students. “That exposure is so important because a lot of students don’t really see themselves going to college and they have this very singular perspective on what college means,” he said. “So, when they get exposure to students in college, they see there’s so much more to it.”
This spring, an Ariel teacher asked if Pittock could look into arranging a brief UChicago campus tour for a group of eighth graders. Pittock, who also works part-time in the University’s Admissions office, wanted to take the request a few steps further. Collaborating with NSP leadership, she set up a personalized Admissions workshop and pizza party for the students, led the campus tour herself, and asked her Philosophy professor if she could bring 10 guests with her to class.
“I was a little nervous because I know that for eighth graders it can be cool to hate school, but it was perfect,” Pittock said. The group listened eagerly to an 80-minute lecture about Nietzsche and the evolution of morality, she said, and even asked questions and stayed after class to speak with the professor. “They were like ‘This is so pretty!’ ‘This is so cool!’ and ‘I didn’t know this is what college is like, I’m totally going to go to college now!’ So, it was so much better than I ever anticipated.”
Though she’s not planning to go into teaching herself, Pittock says working with NSP has deepened her appreciation for teachers and helped her sharpen skills like effectively communicating with different age groups, which she thinks will come in handy as she pursues a career in medicine. The opportunity to connect with the broader community has been meaningful as well.
Pittock says she’s seen the students she’s worked with throughout the school year grow more confident in their reading and writing and often their enthusiasm about school in general.
“They seem to be more excited and less interested in ragging on it, which I know is a universal middle school experience, but I think they’ve improved in a lot of ways,” Pittock said. “It feels nice to see the impact you’re making on other kids. And if there’s one more reason for them to be excited to come to school on Thursdays because I’m going to be there with candy if they can define what a noun is? I’m going to keep doing that.”
