About Gretchen

I have a Master of Arts in the Teaching of English (Language Arts/Literature) from Columbia University's Teachers College, and I graduated with slightly over a 4.0 GPA (between an A and A+ average). Part of why I want to tutor is due to the need to be more personally involved in students' well-being, and this goes so far beyond the scope of classroom teaching. The presence of a tutor in a young person's life can make a difference both academically and personally. I came to this realization wholeheartedly in my student-teaching experience, simply due to the individualized attention. I, a second teacher in the room, I watched some habitually taciturn, fearful, and otherwise closed-up students bloom. This process convinced me that I want to dedicate myself to experiences like these. In reading many of their evaluations of me that I created upon leaving, they're genuine, heartfelt exuberance over how much they liked working with me, not only elicited the most rewarding of tears on my end, but solidified my desire to continue to personally touch students in ways that sometimes are stymied by the impersonal structure in a classroom of 31 or more students.