I'm Big with the K to 6 Crowd

How a small-time gig became the biggest part of my week

Student doodles in my notebook

One of the perks of being a good boy in the Therapeutic Community I live in is the chance to work again. Just a smidgen, mind you. The parameters are narrow enough to discourage any employer outside a dirt farm — I’m only allowed 2-3 halfish days a week, at times that can’t overlap with most recovery programming. Good luck.

And yet I found a job. It isn’t even a part-time job, it’s more a quarter-time commitment that averages nine hours a week. That’s pretty much a tank of gas and tub of ice cream, before tariffs.

Emboldened by the help I’ve been giving guys here with high school upgrades, I applied to be a tutor at a local learning school, flashing my fancy credentials as a published writer and former media monkey.

I imagined sitting backward in a folding chair, Oxford shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows, jamming on creative writing with young adults into the wee hours. Instead, my students turned out to be wee children, all farts and snot, missing their front teeth and attention spans.

And I could not love them more.

After seeing how I connected with kindergarten-and-up kids, the centre director assigned me exclusively to the K-6 crowd, and today I teach story reading, punctuation, math (yes, math!), and beginning writing to three whippersnappers at a time.

To begin each session, I show them photos of my cat, Goose. The ultimate icebreaker.

There’s little Lola, punctual in pigtails and a whiz at rhyming. Poppy melts my heart with her shyness and perfect letter tracing. Kayla’s sentences are stand-up-funny and her spelling is way too cute to correct.

And then there’s Maddy. A grade four girl obsessed with mystery shows, especially the “ones with murder.” I once asked if she knew the word homophone. She said no, but explained what a homicide was.

“A couple moms emailed me that their daughters only want Mr. Jordan,” my boss recently told me. “You really have a way with little girls.”

“It’s because I have daughters I guess,” I said, playing it all cool.

That was the best thing a young supervisor has told me in a long while. She tapped into something deeper than I let on — because at work, rudimentary ABCs turn complex with meaning for me.

As a long distance dad, I missed out on much of this formative writing and reading experience with my girls. It’s an island of time I can never get back now that they are young women. And somehow, this do-over has me wagging my tail to start work every shift.

Sometimes a small student will mirror my eldest daughter’s bright smile or laugh like my youngest would, and a great ache, a not altogether unpleasant ache, will swell inside me. It’s a wistful weight, a longing for someone beloved, a homesickness for somewhere I don’t call home — a feeling Brazilians sum up best with the word saudade.

Indira and Bina, two sisters 7 and 10 years old — the same ages of my girls once — sweetly personify my daughters in small gestures and keen attention in every exercise. Sometimes, I swear their voices are the same ones I remember, and my breathing deepens, respiring through an unknown sentiment, something between love and loss.

My first thought was that tutoring shouldn’t feel this consequential. Then I leaned into the fact that, damn straight it should.

Cat (pictured), Cow, and Car

No one knows that during a synonym puzzle or spaceship story, I have a hidden hum within me, one of second chances and secret ways to give back. Yet, all they see is some old dude way too excited to practice lower case letters and read Go Dog Go!

Some guys I live with in this nutty recovery community tell me they can get me roofing and tiling work for 5 times the hourly pay. But they don’t know. And I like it that way.

At five minutes before the hour, it’s tradition to end the session with a light game, and I’ll often break out the erasable board for Hangman. Yesterday, I put up a five letter word (it was H-A-P-P-Y). Maya, lover of murders, didn’t even need to pick a letter before guessing A-R-S-O-N.

All in a day’s work.