In The Classroom -- Lending a hand

Danette Goulet

COSTA MESA -- With her knees on her chair and torso stretched out

along the table, Elizabeth Vivas, 6, carefully counted out the beads on

an abacus.

“Nine,” she announced after sliding six yellow wooden balls and one

red away from the 16 she had counted out.

Allie Duernberger, 11, a sixth-grade tutor from Mariners Christian

School, guided her in using the archaic tool to help with her

subtraction, although neither knew its name.

Elizabeth was one of nearly a dozen children doing homework at

Shalimar Learning Center in Costa Mesa on Monday. A sixth-grader from the

private school aided them.

Each Monday in the spring, a small group of sixth-graders are brought

over to Shalimar as tutors.

“It is part of a school wide philanthropy program,” said John

Hellriegel, a sixth-grade homeroom teacher. “We try to expose kids to as

much as possible. Every grade does some sort of philanthropy.”

For their first experience in giving back to the community, some of

these students were really getting into it.

Jazz Brice, 12, sat huddled with Jessica Vargas, 6, as they read “The

Berenstein Bears and the Spooky Old Tree.”

“Sound it out,” Jazz instructed her young charge.

“Good Job,” she encouraged upon hearing the right sound.

If you watched Jessica’s mouth, you could see her form the words

silently before reading them aloud, eager to please her tutor.

In another room, 11-year-old Anna Jordan tried diligently to help a

third-grade girl figure out short division.

Anna remembered helpful little tricks, which she shared with Carmen

Palacios, 8.

Who better to work with a student than another student, I thought as I

watched.