Ignatian tutor Anne Marie Campbell tells it like it is

 
By Christie L. Chicoine
CS&T Staff Writer

Besides their teachers, students at Our Mother of Sorrows School can thank Anne Marie Campbell for helping them develop their math skills.
At the same time, Campbell can thank the students and faculty for a chance to demonstrate her Catholic faith.
“The whole Jesuit idea of faith in action is what it’s all about for me,” she said. “This is not something I do out of a sense of duty. I just need to do it to be connected and keep myself on an even keel.”
Campbell, 63, tutors pupils at Our Mother of Sorrows in West Philadelphia as a member of the Ignatian Lay Volunteer Corps (ILVC), a national Catholic service organization for people who are retired or semi-retired, which operates under the auspices of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits).
Tutoring, she said, avails her of the opportunity to touch others’ lives as well as share in the unique work involved in Catholic education.
“Our Mother of Sorrows is a very special place. There’s such a wonderful attitude there,” she said. “I’m so impressed by the way they treat the kids. They make their expectations clear and they’re firm but gentle.”
As a tutor, Campbell works to give the youngsters more self-confidence in mastering a wide gamut of the curriculum. And, by incorporating games into the learning process, she makes it fun.
Campbell, a member of Presentation B.V.M. Parish in Penn Wynne, has a bachelor’s degree in social studies from St. Joseph’s University and has worked as a math tutor. She has volunteered throughout her adult life in one capacity or another, she said. In fact, she volunteered as a tutor at Sorrows in the 1960s.
“I’ve always thought of the Beatitudes as the summary of what we’re challenged to do as Christians,” she said.
Now, through the ILVC, Campell is affiliated in service with other men and women between the ages of 50 and 70 who are either retired or semi-retired from their primary careers in fields that include business, education, finance, social service, health care and homemaking.
The ILVC members are matched on an individual basis according to the needs of an organization and their respective skills. They use those skills two days a week for a year, working in organizations that serve the materially poor.
The work Campbell performs as a tutor at Sorrows reflects her own Catholic upbringing, she said: “My earliest Ignatian influence was when I was a kid and we put AMDG [Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, which is Latin for “to the greater glory of God] across the top of our papers.”
For her, the biggest blessing of tutoring is “just having a chance to try to make a difference.”
In addition to knowing the subject and having some tricks of the trade, a good and effective tutor conveys to students the belief that they, themselves, can master learning, she said. She advises her students not to be scared of math and not to skip their homework. She reminds them that every day’s lesson is another building block on top of yesterday’s building block. And she tells them to throw themselves into math and to have fun.
“Kids will often tell you, ‘I’m pretty good with my plusses, but I can’t do my minuses,’ she said. “I do a lot of games with decks of cards so that the children can get the idea that addition and subtraction are reciprocal.”
She also encourages “mental math” by helping her students observe patterns and relationships in numbers, and use a number line instead of counting on their fingers.
“When I tell them they can’t count on their fingers, they usually look at me like I have three heads,” she said with amusement. “They get comfortable with the number line as a way to help them think it through, then they move on to realize they can do a lot in their head. I like to tell them mathematicians like to be lazy — that’s why they’re always looking for shortcuts.”
Campbell recalled the thank-you note she received from a student: “‘Thanks for teaching me to be lazy.’ [She] drew a picture of herself with her feet up on her desk, snoring. That was cute.”
Other sites in the Philadelphia area where ILVC members serve include La Salle Academy; the Consumer Bankruptcy Assistance Project; the parish and school of St. Malachy, and Holy Family Home. The organization’s regional office is located on the campus of St. Joseph’s University.
The ILVC is financed through a variety of organizations and individuals. Contributions are received from individual donors, members, foundations, and provinces of the Society of Jesus. In addition, the organizations where members are placed are asked to contribute $1,000 toward the cost of recruitment, on-going formation and member supervision.
The ILVC members also strengthen their faith through monthly gatherings, spiritual direction and retreats.
For Campbell, Our Mother of Sorrows seems to be the perfect, and rewarding, fit.
Campell recalls with special fondness the exuberant reaction of a boy in an enrichment group who solved a problem on his own one day.
“The kids were a little bit dismayed the first couple weeks when they realized I wasn’t going to just show them how to do the problems,” she said. One particular day, she remembered, “I was asking leading questions and asking them to try whatever strategies they thought were appropriate and then go back and ask if their answers made sense.”
The class spent 20 minutes on one problem, but no one could figure out the solution.
“All of a sudden, this one boy said, ‘Hey! I can do this!’” Campell said. “It was a real joy to see that lightning flash.”
For more information, contact George Eisele, ILVC regional director, 5600 City Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. 19131; (610) 660-3204 or e-mail geisele@sju.edu. Call the national office at (888)-831-4686 or check out the Web site www.ilvc.org

Contact Christie L. Chicoine at (215) 587-2468 or cchicoin@adphila.org