Tutor Snapshot: Laura Kurtycz

Laura Kurtycz (seen here with her pal Gilbert) has been tutoring with Nurturing Wisdom for almost two years. Students love Laura for the energy and enthusiasm that she brings to her sessions, and parents appreciate her skill for building confidence in her students. Laura has her B.A. in Chinese and Anthropology. She spent two years doing Teach for America in Chicago, and received her Master's in Early Childhood Education. To add to Laura's impressively varied background, she has also spent time in Africa volunteering at a baboon sanctuary, and working at the Lincoln Park Zoo.

Long tails, dark brown hands, expressive eyes, warm hugs, and peppery breath. These are the sensory images that come to mind when I think back over my experience two summers ago, not long before I joined the Nurturing Wisdom team.

In July of 2009 I volunteered at the Centre for Animal Rehabilitation and Education (C.A.R.E.), a Chacma baboon sanctuary outside of Phalaborwa, South Africa. As a volunteer, I participated in all parts of running the Centre, including food preparation, enclosure maintenance, observation, and food procurement (which sounds fancy, but really just meant riding all over the countryside in a pick-up truck, or “buggie,” collecting free or heavily discounted vegetables from neighboring farms). The babies at the centre are anywhere from 3 months to a year old, and all of them are orphans. Some of them were kept as pets (until they got older and were not cute anymore), some watched their mothers shot or poisoned, and some were just found by the side of the road. One way or another, they ended up at CARE. In the enclosure, or “hok,” it is the volunteers’ job to observe, mediate, discipline, and provide comfort to the babies, as older sisters and mothers would do in a wild troop. The babies would otherwise lack this type of interaction, which is crucial to optimal development and growth.

Laura is in the middle, feeding Bella. Crosby sits on her lap with his tongue sticking out, while Jude looks on. The baboon in the back is Rita.

The babies spent the days together in an enclosure, goofing around and playing with toys, including balls, dolls, boxes, and a small white plastic bucket. This was a favorite toy - many an hour was punctuated by human giggles as we watched one baboon or another repeatedly and purposefully bounce off of walls with a bucket on his or her head. One of my favorite memories is of Gabby, a seven-month old. One particular afternoon, Gabby picked up the old white bucket and slapped it over her head. Unfortunately, it was about a quarter full of water. Gabby held the bucket in one hand, and stood, astonished and sopping wet. She stared at bucket, dumbfounded, as we laughed until we cried. But afterwards, wiping away the tears, I wondered what Gabby was really thinking. Did she understand what happened? Did she blame the bucket? Was she confused? Would she always look inside buckets from now on?

Watching the baby baboons that summer, I was constantly struck by how much they reminded me of my former kindergarten students. They quarreled, they fought, they played with toys and they wrestled with each other, all within the space of a few minutes. Baby baboons groom each other. Five year old girls braid each others’ hair. What is the difference, really? But the parallels run deeper. The babies were exploring and learning all the time. Gabby learned a valuable lesson that day about water and buckets (and looking before you leap!). All day, every day, some tiny baboon brain is digesting some other lesson, some other truth about baboon life, so that someday she will be able to venture into the world as productive, (dare I say, educated?) member of baboon society.

Fortunately, human children are easier to teach than baboons – I guess being able to speak English to them makes a big difference. (Then again, human children do not have tails to grab onto as they run by, making them harder to catch). Yet I often feel that the experiences are similar. In both cases, all the young ones ask from us is patience, love, guidance, and the willingness to let them learn their own lessons, even if it means getting wet.