During the summer, I decided to volunteer with a few of my friends at this tutoring center. I have tutored some people before, but I’ve never really tutored anyone that’s in middle school or in high school. The manager put me in charge of tutoring elementary school kids along with my best friend. One day, the manager and owner pulled me aside and told me they needed me to tutor math for the incoming freshmen. I was nervous and scared of teaching them, but I had no choice. The first day of teaching them was alright; however, on the second day no one wanted to ask me questions/treated me with disrespect because I was a relatively new tutor and they felt more comfortable with the male tutors. So I stood there trying to act busy, but then my best friend came to visit me on her break. She was asking me for advice on teaching and it led to another discussion. The room got pretty loud and the other tutors were on their phone instead of controlling the students. The manager scolded me and my best friend and kicked me out of the room. I admit that it was my fault for getting distracted by my best friend, so I promised myself that I’ll do better the next day. The next day I went to tutor them again, but they were really hesitant to ask me for help because of what happened yesterday. I didn’t want to make them uncomfortable, so I tried to break the ice with some small talk and advice for high school courses. This made them open up to me and allowed me to teach them. One of the students asked me about my high school experience so I gave her some advice on it and a few incidents I had, but the manager came in and thought I was getting distracted again. The manager stood behind me, and started to yank my hair. She yanked my hair for 20 seconds but it felt like an hour. She screamed at me, trying to make me bang my head against the wall, and pulled my face close to hers so she could see me cry. Instead of giving her the reaction she wanted, I just smiled. I tried to explain what happened but she didn’t want to hear me out. The students once again are now ignoring me…they’re afraid that if they talk to me, I’m going to get them in trouble. Now all the other tutors know what happened and started laughing at me. I really want to quit volunteering there. I used to love helping out the kids and teaching them. Now the people won’t even speak to me. What should I do? I really help.
