Tutor Spotlight: Graedon

Tell us a little about yourself.

Currently, I’m a professional student, studying for my doctorate at Yale University. I’m doing a joint Ph.D. in Political Science and Religious Studies. After completing my degree, I intend to take a position as a professor at a college or university. I live outside of New York City with my wife, who is an attorney, and our two Maine Coon cats. I’m also an ordained pastor in the Anglican Church. I recently spent three years working as a Pastoral Associate and Youth Pastor at a church just outside of Washington, D.C. My intention is to continue working as a pastor part-time throughout my career.

What is one thing you've learned this year about your area of expertise?

Well, my real areas of expertise are political theory and religious ethics. In regard to those areas, one thing I’ve been thinking about a lot this year is loneliness. In my judgment, we live in society in which loneliness has reached unprecedented levels. Part of what is going on is that we are less and less connected to the people around us. For example, I’m living outside of New York right now but my family lives outside of Philadelphia and many of my friends are in Washington, D.C. We move around more throughout our lives, which means we tend to have fewer and shorter meaningful friendships. We also tend to be less connected to our neighbors and to local community. Most of us don’t know that many of our neighbors all that well, and most of us aren’t all that involved in local organizations. There are all sorts of interesting things to say about how we came to be such a lonely society, what the political and ethical implications of loneliness are, and what we should do about it.

Let’s leave philosophizing for another occasion, though, and talk about standardized tests. I spend lots of time tutoring standardized tests and, recently, I’ve been struck by how preparing for standardized tests gets students ready for college and graduate school. Throughout their time in higher education, students will be continually aided by the ability to quickly comprehend complicated texts, to confidently produce grammatical and eloquent sentences, to grasp how ideas should flow together in a well-composed piece of writing, to utilize the logical reasoning skills necessary for solving difficult math problems, and to parse complicated graphs and diagrams. As a full-time graduate student, I have a personal appreciation for the importance of these abilities.

What is a recent "success story" with your families?

I’ll give you three. First, I had a student who scored a 21 on her first ACT practice exam. After we worked together for ten sessions, she went all the way up to a 31! I was extremely pleased with how hard she worked.

Second, I had a student who came to me just a week before she was going to take the ACT. We did four sessions in that single week and she improved from a 30 (on her first mock ACT) to a 34 (on the official test). Through just one week of tutoring, she gained three points on science and nine points on reading.

Third, and finally, I had a student who had spent a long time studying for the ACT before coming to me, but hadn’t been able to improve her science and math scores significantly. After we worked together, she went up by five points on math and seven points on science.

What advice would you have for your students?

Don’t just study for the test. Study to improve the skills the test evaluates. Come to a deeper understanding of the math concepts you learned in ninth grade, become a better reader, learn those fine points of grammar that you never really understood before, expand your active vocabulary. Embrace studying for standardized tests as an opportunity to become a more educated person better prepared to succeed in educational and vocational contexts. If you approach preparing for standardized tests with that attitude, you’ll learn more easily and even begin to enjoy the process.