In-depth is going well! I’m starting this post with a short update and then I will look at the six hats.
I put up posters around the city throughout spring break, however, as we can see in the telephone conversation below, it doesn’t seem like they did very much. As my mentor had recommened, I will be going to the elementary and middle schools by Gleneagle (Eagle Ridge Elementary and Scott Creek Middle) to hand out business cards and flyers in person this week (I went to Eagle Ridge Elementary today, Monday.)
As my mentor and I have somewhat conflicting schedules, I wasn’t able to meet with him, but we had a conversation over the phone about my progress. Here is a transcript of that conversation after I greeted him and asked if I could record the phone call. Some parts have been slightly edited for clarity.
I have put curly brackets around parts where I think a hat was used. Directly after the second bracket there is a number indicating which hat was used. (1- white, 2- red, 3- black, 4- yellow, 5- green, and 6- blue.)
Me: {Around a month ago, I know you said that if any new students called then I would be able to tutor them}6 and to be honest I wasn’t really able to do much advertising, but {did any students contact you?
Lucas (mentor): I haven’t come across any yet.}1
Me: {What can you suggest for me to do?}5
Lucas: The biggest part of running a business is advertising for that business because sales, shares, all rely on advertising. If you aren’t able to sell, you aren’t able to run a business. However, if you are still interested in trying to hunt for one student, just one, I would be more than happy to oversee your instruction on that student.
Me: Yeah that would be good, but then would I still have to find that student?
Lucas: Yes, otherwise you’re not going to have any student to teach.
Me: Yeah ok I was just clarifying that, but that would be good.
Lucas: Ok perfect. Is there anything I can do to help? I’m really busy right now and pretty much in meetings all week except for Thursday morning.
Me: I think right now {if you just have any recommendations on how I could do more advertising that would be great}5 and then if I do need more help we could meet Thursday morning?
Lucas: Sure, have you gone to any of the elementary or middle schools like I recommended?
Me: I wasn’t actually able to do that just because I was kind of busy this month as well but I think I should have more time now and I would be able to do that.
Lucas: I think as soon as your school ends, dropping by an elementary or middle school would be a really good idea, and just handing out flyers or business cards to some parents, and if that doesn’t work after about a week I’d be very very surprised, because I usually managed to find about a student a day while I was doing that kind of advertising. Just sort of saying “Hey, hey, how’s it going? Here take a flyer, here take a flyer, here take a flyer” and essentially going crazy and showing everybody.
Me: Okay I’ll try to do that when I have time it’s just {sometimes my school ends at a different time than most elementary schools do,}3 but I think I should be able to work around that.
Lucas: What time does Gleneagle finish at?
Me: Usually it’s okay it’s around 2:30 so that should be okay but the just some days it ended a bit earlier.
Lucas: Okay well if ends earlier than that, I mean 2:30 is a very early end to the day, because I know a lot of elementary schools end around 3:25.
Me: Yeah I know, but {there’s an elementary and a middle school really close to Gleneagle so I would just be able to go straight there.}4
Lucas: Ok that would be a great idea for you.
Me: Yeah. I just had one last question, is the criminal record check done yet?
Lucas: Oh yeah I have it ready to go, I just need to meet you to give it to you.
Me: You could send it to me by email if that’s also a possibility.
Lucas: My scanners not working right now.
Me: Then maybe {would you be able to meet Thursday morning?}6
Lucas: I can probably do that for you.
Me: Ok great.
Lucas: Ok perfect if you have any other comments or concerns please feel free to call me back.
Me: Yeah thank you so much!
Lucas: No worries talk to you soon, bye.
I’d like to expand on each of the parts of conversation in curly brackets, and I’ll go through them in hat order.
White:
“Did any students contact you?
I haven’t come across any yet.”
So here I am establishing a fact at the very beginning of the conversation by asking Lucas how many students had contacted him. This helps guide the rest of the conversation because what I need to talk to him about depends on whether sa student had contacted him or not.
Red
I wasn’t able to find a clear example of the red hat being used in this conversation as it is quite fact based, and I seem to agree with Lucas most of the time. This is the closest I could find (it’s not in brackets in the text):
“if I do need more help we could meet Thursday morning”
We have a reason for a possible meeting (I need further help) however, it’s such a broad reason because I could need help for a number of different reasons. Even though it’s not a clear example of a red hat, this statement kind of prompted the use of the red hat later in the text when we did agree to meet on Thursday. I decided I do need a meeting, even though it wasn’t quite for the reason we had originally discussed.
Black
“sometimes my school ends at a different time than most elementary schools do”
Here I am identifying a problem so that we can resolve it together. The problem is that I finish school earlier than the schools around Gleneagle, so I would have to wait some time before I would actually get to advertise. Even though we didn’t really come to a conclusion on the problem, I realized that it’s better that I end earlier than later because I can walk to the schools and be there to give cards/flyers to the parents while they’re waiting for their kids.
Yellow
“there’s an elementary and a middle school really close to Gleneagle so I would just be able to go straight there.”
Even though I had come across a problem, I looked at the positive aspects around the problem. So becuase I ended earlier, I would be able to walk to the other schools around Gleneagle in my own time and my parents wouldn’t have to drive me to get me there on time (kids get picked up quickly so it would be ideal for me to be advertising around ten minutes before and after the last bell).
Green
“if you just have any recommendations on how I could do more advertising that would be great”
I had done advertising by placing posters around the Tri Cities, but that didn’t attract new customers, so I asked my mentor what else I could do to increase the chance of getting a student.
Blue
“Around a month ago, I know you said that if any new students called then I would be able to tutor them”
“would you be able to meet Thursday morning?”
Here are two examples of me using the blue hat to overview what had been done before or to plan for the future. In the first quote, I’m going over what had happened before and what we need to discuss this time, and in the second quote I am trying to organize plans for our next meeting by asking if he’s available.
That’s everything for this post, I hope I find a student soon and I can start to finally tutor.
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