Meet Taylor!

Taylor is a Sunshiner who uses her creativity to inspire her lessons, and is dedicated to helping children grow and learn every day.

Join our conversation with Taylor below:

Hi Taylor! It's great to be able to sit down with you. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and how long you’ve been a tutor?

I’ve been tutoring here with The Sunshine Method for coming up on a year this Spring, and that’s been incredibly rewarding. I love getting to know the kids and seeing them grow in their love for a subject. Maybe it was not their favorite subject initially, and then later on they love it! I enjoy seeing them have “aha” moments and grow in their confidence to feel better about themselves as a person.

I also do photography, and I like music, playing the piano, hiking, I enjoy a lot of things, and it’s fun to connect with kids on their different hobbies too. 

What motivates you to tutor or mentor the children in your community? 

My biggest motivating factor is that I have an opportunity to make an impact in someone’s life, and not just their life right now, but in their future. I remember in the past how teachers helped me, how they saw me and believed in me. They took an interest in me, and I think it's amazing to be that for someone else. 

A lot of us can relate to that feeling.  Kind of going off with that last question, what’s one of the best experiences that you’ve had since becoming a tutor?

I’ve had so many! A student had previously expressed to me that they didn't feel they were good at math, that it was their worst subject. We had been working on a specific topic in math for several weeks, and one day they were doing a worksheet on it and it just kind of came together for them. It went really smoothly, and I expressed to them how proud I was and how well they did, and they said, “Well yeah, I’m really good at this”. It just made me smile because I could not picture that a few weeks ago.

That’s a great story! It's always great to see those moments when a child's confidence blossoms. What advice would you give to a child that’s struggling in school or just kind of lacking confidence overall?

I would remind them to just be patient. If you’re struggling with something, you won’t always be struggling. To remember that with hard work, you can do so much. That there are people who believe in you, and you’re a strong person. If they remember that, then they remember what their self worth is, and they can keep working at something that they’re struggling with, seeing it as an opportunity instead of a setback, “this is an area where I can improve and I can make progress”, instead of “this is an area that I’m just not good in”.

Advice we can all benefit from! Do you have any tips to keep a child engaged during your lessons?

It depends on what the kid likes. One of my kids loves to write stories and they love creative writing, so we use that to help with her reading skills. We write a creative story, and then we go back and see the sequence of events, and how we put them together. It’s so much more fun for her because she wrote the story and she loves it!

That sounds like so much fun! Is there anything that a child has taught you?

Kids are always teaching me things, but I think one of the things that kids teach me would just be to slow down and to have fun with what you’re doing. They always see the joy and little things. I have one student that absolutely loves games and she’s so excited about it and her enthusiasm is contagious. That reminds me that life doesn’t have to be boring. It’s really what you make of it.

Definitely! What do you think it takes to be a Sunshine Method tutor?

I think it takes patience and a love of not just education, but a love of helping people. You have to have motivation to get to know a child, to try and help them and improve their life. I feel like most teachers have that motivation, so if you do, you’ll love being a Sunshine tutor!

Is there any advice that you would give to other tutors?

My advice would be to have fun with it. Slow down and get to know the student on an individual level, and once you figure out what works for them just keep rolling with it. Celebrate all the little milestones that they have. It might not be a big thing, but if you notice something, and you can praise that, then you’ll both feel excited about thelearning journey.

Celebrating the little milestone is so important. What’s the best piece of advice that somebody has given you in regards to tutoring?

The best piece of advice came from a teacher, so that’s kind of poetic in itself, but it’s just to put the student first before the learning. If a student is not in the right headspace or the right mindset, then no learning can be done. That’s really helped me with my tutoring. It's also important to see every child as an individual. We’re all unique, we learn differently, we process differently, and it’s exciting to figure out what we are each individually good at.

Sage advice! I just had one final question for you. What are some of your hopes for your students in the future?

I hope my students will dream big and continue to improve their self-confidence, not put themselves in a box, because they can do so many things! I hope that they have good problem-solving skills so that they can navigate what life throws at them, and find creative solutions. I hope they have a good mindset, and can be resilient. And I like that it all starts here.