Madeleine Fazio serves as a math tutor with the FLOC Neighborhood Tutoring Program. She tutors one student on Thursday nights at FLOC and another on Wednesday afternoons at Tyler Elementary. Madeleine, a senior at the George Washington University, first heard about FLOC through GW’s DC Reads Programduring her freshman year.
Madeleine has been tutoring at FLOC since the fall of 2011. This year, Madeleine works with two students: Asaah and Melvin. Both are very motivated. Asaah likes to fill Madeleine in on everything that is going on at school and talk like peers. This makes working with her very easy because she is very comfortable, loving to crack a joke to make them both laugh. Asaah loves Uno and the Monopoly game with the credit cards.
Melvin is also very motivated. He never says no to anything he is asked to do. He is so determined to learn that sometimes Madeleine will offer to play a math game for a break, but he just wants to keep learning.
One of the best parts of tutoring, according to Madeleine, is when all of a sudden something just clicks. Asaah always complains about having to take tests, but when she comes out with her passing sheet, she is always so happy. “I think those are my favorite moments working with her,” says Madeleine. “My favorite moment with Melvin was when he won math war–he was so happy! Every week we play the card game war, only with addition and subtraction facts, and he is always very motivated to win that specific game. He will ask to play it just to try to win.”
In addition to tutoring with FLOC, Madeleine is the editor-in-chief of The Cherry Tree Yearbook at GW, which she really enjoys. She is also the president of the GW student chapter of the Association for Women in Mathematics. Madeleine will graduate from GW in May. Starting in September, she will be teaching secondary mathematics in New York City for Teach for America.
(Vanessa Hanible is the Recruitment and Outreach Associate.)
