"I’ve had careers in teaching, publishing, and corporate banking. I have master’s degrees in writing and business administration and have a PMP and Six Sigma Black Belt.

Given the above, I teach what I know: writing, math/business, and career development.

I’ve taught at two colleges; written and edited for newspapers and magazines for 20 years; and just retired from Truist Financial, where I ran projects and later led operational teams.

Teaching Style:

I like to root-cause problems, then get to solutions. So I ask questions and listen _ closely _ to what students, parents, and written works reveal about students’ needs, dislikes, and fears.

I care about whether a student is a visual, auditory, or tactile learner. And I think it’s my job to make complex ideas meaningful, to approach them in diverse ways, and to help students create good habits and break bad ones.

Reading, Writing:

I was a terrible reader as a child, constantly confused by what I read.

Eventually, using my peripheral vision (and learning to recognize grammatical units) I learned to see phrases and short clauses as meaningful clumps, not as individual words. And, eventually, having studied exposition, I learned to recognize how textbook sections were related.

How can we teach reading without writing?

Grammar, Proofreading, SAT Writing:

I proof your written work for logic, organization, punctuation, grammar, usage, and writing mechanics. (The SAT writing component tests knowledge of the last four.)

During four painful high school years, teachers used red pens to point out my lapses in these areas. College professors and newspaper editors continued the sport for the next 15 years. Eventually I caught on.

Business, Career Coaching:

I was unemployed for 10 months during the Great Recession but had informational/job interviews with 100+ people, went to weekly job-hunting classes at a non-profit networking group, and worked with two HR consultants.

After being hired, I volunteered for my networking group for four years, teaching others." less...