The Chapel Hill High School Tutoring Club, founded by sophomore and president Jocelyn Ming, offers students the opportunity to receive tutoring in almost any subject from a peer.
Ming was inspired to create the Tutoring Club this fall because she saw a lack of resources for struggling students. After sharing her idea, she soon gathered a group of friends who were interested in helping her establish the club and serving as peer tutors.
“I got a lot of people that I knew from robotics and a lot of people I knew, like classmates,” Ming said. Knowing the people she works with personally has helped Ming because she has a “person to bounce my ideas back and forth on.”
Social studies teacher Kathryn Murchison, the club’s advisor, hosts the club’s meetings in her room every Tuesday at lunch. Ming initially asked Murchison to be the advisor because she had heard that Murchison had “been talking about how this school needs more tutoring,” Ming said.
Murchison was part of the teacher-led tutoring group that was active in previous years. She said that because both the teacher-led tutoring group and the previous student-led tutoring club are no longer in action, “it seemed like there was a need” for a new program.
Vice president of the Tutoring Club and sophomore Quinn O’Keeffe attempted to join a tutoring club last year, but the seniors who had been running it graduated, leaving no leadership to continue the club. When he learned about Ming’s idea to revamp the club and resume meetings, he was immediately interested and volunteered to assist in restarting it. Ming said that O’Keeffe’s “raw drive” to be a tutor was the main reason she assigned him the role of vice president.
Secretary and sophomore Nyasha Singh manages the club’s behind-the-scenes logistics: she posts on Google Classroom, coordinates meetings and creates the slide shows; Singh also tutors during the Tuesday meetings.
“I decided to join because I have some prior experience in tutoring,” Singh said. She tutors her brother, elementary schoolers in minority groups learning English and students through Khan Academy’s international tutoring program, Schoolhouse World.
The club offers tutoring in each major academic area: math, science, English and social studies, with different members of the club serving as subject leaders.
Having subject leaders is advantageous because they can organize and recruit within their specific academic disciplines, allowing the club to offer support in a wide range of challenging classes.
A tutoring club run by students creates a unique environment where struggling students can seek help from peers they relate to without the fear of judgment from teachers. Murchison said that peer tutoring is a good option for students “if they’re intimidated or unsure about talking to the teacher” about areas where they may be struggling.
Student tutors also benefit from the experience by solidifying their knowledge and developing the skill of teaching. It is one thing to understand a subject, but another to be able to explain it clearly to someone else.
“For someone who’s absolutely acing their classes but has never been able to reach out and talk to people, this might be a good way for them to gain some leadership and get better at people skills,” Ming said.
Murchison is optimistic about the Tutoring Club’s future because the leaders have multiple years left to establish the club before they graduate.
“I hope that the [Tutoring Club] becomes something that is self-sustaining,” Murchison said. “I think sometimes it’s common at Chapel Hill [High School] that students have a great idea for a club, but they create it the year they graduate. Sometimes the club doesn’t survive after them, and so I hope with this being a group of young underclassmen that that gives it time to build so it can be something that is self-sustaining.”
Both Ming and Singh have ambitions for the club’s future. Singh wants to expand the club to offer “group sessions, one-on-one sessions and just anything overall that our community at CHHS wants so that we can help them thrive academically,” she said.
Ming is focused on spreading awareness about the club so that “as you step into freshman year and start struggling, a friend would just be like ‘Hey, there’s a Tutoring Club,'” she said.
The Tutoring Club aims to provide an essential academic resource for the students at Chapel Hill High School. As the club continues to grow, its leaders are focused on expanding its scope and ensuring sustainability for years to come.
