Written by Wilson, Community Worker
If you’ve been following our stories, you might remember Qistina, a soft-spoken 13-year-old who surprised everyone when she stayed behind after an academic support session just to do more math practice (Issue #2524). She had finally grasped a concept that once felt impossible, and she didn’t want the feeling to end.
At the time, some described her as unmotivated. But all it took was one volunteer asking a different question, trying a different approach, and it became clear. Qistina wasn’t unmotivated. She had simply been left behind – her confidence shaken, her fundamentals missing.
Now, we’d like you to meet her younger sister.
Qiara is 11. She attends our academic support programme for primary school students and, like her sister, math is a challenge. And like her sister, she sometimes appears unmotivated. But she still tries. She shows up. She attempts the questions. And with encouragement from volunteers, she keeps going.
One afternoon, I joined her and a volunteer during a session. Qiara was stuck on what seemed like a simple question:
45 cents + $7.00 = ?
She diligently wrote out the working she had been taught, but landed on an answer that read $121. Rather than correct her immediately, I asked gently, “You’ve bought things before, right? You’ve handled money?” She nodded, a little sheepish.
I asked her to close her eyes and imagine standing in a shop. “You have 45 cents,” I said. “And someone gives you seven dollars. How much do you have now?”
Almost instantly, she replied: “$7.45.”
She grinned when I told her she was right.
It was one of those quiet moments that said so much. The math wasn’t the problem, the method was. What she knew intuitively through lived experience hadn’t yet found its place on paper. And for a child whose life has required her to grow up fast, whose environment teaches her to problem-solve daily, it was only natural that the shop made more sense than the worksheet.
When we teach children by rote, we can end up training them to distrust their own instincts. We overemphasize method over meaning, and in doing so, risk mistaking a different way of learning for a lack of ability. For children from lower-income backgrounds, whose lives are filled with stressors and competing demands, memorization often takes a backseat to survival. But when we honor what they already know, something shifts.
This is why at Beyond, we prioritize learning that is experiential, intuitive, and responsive. Because it’s not always about how well a child can memorize, it’s about how well we, as adults, can see beyond the method and into their potential.
After all, Qistina and Qiara come from the same home. The same challenges. The same assumptions from others. But what they’ve shown us is that when the environment changes, so does the outcome.
Progress doesn’t always follow the same path or pace. Programmes like these give children the chance to grow on their own terms with someone beside them, every step of the way.
“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”
— Benjamin Franklin
If you’d like to support children like Qistina and Qiara as they rediscover what they’ve known all along, we invite you to be part of the journey. All donations will go towards programmes run by Beyond Social Services: