One day when I was in the 8th grade, I sat at the dining table over my biology textbook, stressing about the next day’s quiz.
“Mrs. Holly down the street said her daughter, Riley, is struggling with math,” my mom shouted from the kitchen. “Maybe you could help her out?”
I come from a long line of teachers. My mom is a special education teacher in our neighborhood of Jackson Heights, Queens. My grandma was a history professor and my aunt taught science in middle school. There is some pressure from that lineage; I said I would try.
A few weeks later, I went to meet Riley, a 10-year-old 5th grader, at her nearby apartment. There was a mattress in the living room with three toddlers jumping on top of it, screaming in Spanish and laughing. Riley’s mother guided me to the wooden kitchen table, where Riley sat with her arms crossed and her head turned away from me.
I opened the math textbook to the first chapter: Complex Addition and Subtraction.
“Alright, Riley. Let’s tackle these equations.” I said, hoping my enthusiasm would rub off on her.
Riley rolled her eyes. “Let’s not. I’m not going to college, maybe not even high school. I’m gonna work with my uncle in his restaurant. School’s just… whatever.”
I didn’t know how to respond. My parents always emphasized the importance of education to me, so Riley’s declaration that school was not relevant to her future didn’t make sense to me.
I kept encouraging her to engage with the textbook, emphasizing the importance of practicing to get good grades. She asked me how these equations would help her cook or wait tables.
That night, in my room, I questioned for the first time how useful school was. Riley had a point; not everything we learn is going to be a part of our future career. My brother is an investment banker, and I never saw him using science to advise his clients.
At breakfast the next morning, I told my mom, “I don’t think I can teach Riley. She just doesn’t want to learn.”
My mom laughed. “She’s young. I was the same way.”
“Really?” I asked. My mom had instilled the value of good grades and perfect test scores in me very early on, so I had assumed she was a diligent student when she was my age.
She then told me things I’d never heard about her childhood. My grandfather used to set up paper factories all across India, so my mom moved around a lot as a child, living in five cities before the age of 13. Different schools had different curricula, and she fell behind.
“It was easier to focus on joining Nana’s factory when I was younger,” she told me. The family eventually settled in one place, and my mom graduated high school and college and then got a master’s in business management.
Mom wanted me to be motivated earlier than she was. She and my father moved from Mumbai, India, to the U.S. in 2001 with my 8-year-old brother, and I was born seven years later.
I thought about what she had told me. “So how can I help Riley see that school is important?”
“Maybe Riley needs something different from the textbook,” she said.
My whole life, I had been taught every concept through the same formula: read the schoolbooks, analyze the examples, and do as many practice problems as you can. But I started thinking about new ways to teach Riley.
In our next few sessions, I learned that Riley’s parents were first-generation immigrants from Argentina and non-English-speakers. They put a lot of pressure on Riley to make money from an early age. She started selling fruits and vegetables in the neighborhood when she was 8.
Math in the Kitchen
A few weeks in, I instructed Riley to meet me at my house for our lesson. When she walked in, I was standing in the kitchen, holding a packet of flour in my left hand and chocolate chips in my right. As I handed her an apron, confusion was written across her face.
“Today’s lesson isn’t about numbers on paper.” I explained. “We’re baking cookies. Grab the measuring cups. We need 1¾ cups of flour.”
Riley looked skeptical, but answered, “OK… wait, what’s three-fourths again?”
I picked up the measuring cup and pointed to the numbers on the side. “It’s three parts out of four. Like dividing a pizza into pieces.”
Riley smiled. “Like the textbook!”
Proving our credibility
to parents was difficult.
We were in high school.
“Yes! I bet your uncle uses these measurements too when he works in the restaurant.”
As we baked together, Riley asked more questions, and I saw her confidence grow.
Riley understood fractions as we measured ingredients, but when I tried to reintroduce the textbook later, she said, “Sama, I’m telling you I don’t know what to do for these equations. Can’t we just bake?”
“‘Just baking won’t help you with your test in two weeks. I know you can do this! If I add ½ cup of flour, then another ¼ cup of flour, how much flour is in our bowl?”
Slowly, she connected our measuring with the textbook and was able to get through more and more practice sets. I worked with her for 2 ½ hours a week for about seven months, and in that time, her grades improved and she grew to like school more.
Inspired by Riley’s success and my family’s teaching legacy, I started tutoring more kids in my neighborhood when I started high school. I realized I couldn’t help all the students by myself: This sparked an idea that I shared with friends from my school.
FLOW Prep
I gathered seven of my friends in a teen room at the New York Public Library, and they sat around me in bean bag chairs. ‘So here’s the idea,” I began. “A tutoring program that’s personal. Sessions where we meet students where they are. Like, if someone loves art, we teach through that. If someone wants to work in construction, we use real-world examples.”
I explained how I helped Riley with math.
This idea transformed into FLOW Prep, where tutors adjust their teaching to the students. I reached out to the nonprofit Hack Club, which agreed to sponsor us. We started with five tutors and four administrative high school volunteers to handle outreach, scheduling classes, emailing parents, and keeping us organized. Our team put up flyers in libraries across New York and reached out to over 100 schools offering our free group and private tutoring session to their students. We met once a week to brainstorm new strategies to connect with our respective students.
Riley’s mom spread the word and within a few weeks, Riley and seven of her friends were attending regular private and group tutoring sessions with our organization in math, English, and biology. We decided that online tutoring sessions eliminated commute time and were more accessible, so all FLOW tutoring sessions are on Zoom. We don’t charge students; and everyone in FLOW volunteers their time. We’re all motivated by watching our students’ academic success and self-esteem grow.
We faced a lot of challenges in our first year as an organization. Proving our credibility to parents was difficult. We were in high school; why us instead of licensed professionals at more reputable test prep/tutoring companies? And we weren’t teaching to the test.
When I would lose motivation, hearing the tutors talk about the creative ways they were helping their students re-inspired me. One of our tutors taught Riley about the structure of plant and animal cells by building 3-D models using clay and other craft materials. Riley created colorful representations of organelles like the nucleus, mitochondria, and chloroplasts, labeling each part and discussing its function as she worked.
Another tutor taught an English workshop about figurative language by creating a “metaphor scavenger hunt.” Each student designed a mini storybook using cut-out magazine images, colorful paper, and markers that represented similes, metaphors, and personification. At the end, they shared their story books, and the group tried to spot and discuss the figurative language in each story.
We could see that we were inspiring a new love of learning in our students, but we had to prove it. We asked our students to record 30-second testimonials, and they all emphasized that, after FLOW sessions, they were less intimidated by traditional learning materials like textbooks and tests, and more likely to take on new academic challenges. We compiled these into a promotional film and sent this out to current and prospective FLOW parents.
We asked students for their NY State Exam official results from before they joined FLOW and after receiving tutoring from FLOW. Our English and math students had an average increase of one point (out of four) on their NY State Exams, and we used that data in our promotional materials. We explained to parents that our age was actually an advantage because we were better able to relate to the students.
Now, a year and nine months after launching, 35 students participate in FLOW. Other tutors and I struggle to make time for lesson planning, tutoring and organization meetings, but we all believe in our cause, so we make time to work on FLOW.
Starting this initiative has brought me closer to my family members who are teachers; I often reach out to my aunts for advice.
From tutoring, I gained a whole new perspective on education and the privilege I had to be able to focus on school from a young age. Riley is in 8th grade now, and while she still is unsure if she will go to college, she has joined extracurriculars like debate team and math club.
College is not the only way to pursue your goals, and people find fulfillment in different ways, but everyone deserves access to quality education. Tutors at FLOW try to foster curiosity, confidence, and a love for learning.
I used to participate in activities to please others, and I learned that putting effort into an activity you aren’t actually passionate about can lead to burnout. Running a nonprofit while going to high school requires good time management; I do a lot of my FLOW work on my hour-plus commute between school and home.
I’m not sure if I will pursue education as my career, but I know now that making a difference in someone’s life will be part of what guides my path.
About the Author
