After 370 hours tutoring clients, senior Annie Meng has something to smile about with the tutoring program she started.
Meng decided to launch Smile Tutors last year after meeting English learner students through the peer tutoring program.
“A lot of them had interrupted schooling back in their home country, or they didn’t have a chance to go to school at all. I got to know a lot of them, and I got to make friends with a lot of them.”
Meng said she felt teary when thinking about the students back in their home countries who didn’t have access to proper education. “Smile Tutors came to be because I wanted to do something to be able to help,” she said.
Meng decided on two ways to help: offering free, one-time tutoring sessions to clients and donating the proceeds of weekly tutoring to Childhood Education International.
Weekly tutoring is $25 per session and the group has raised almost $1000 so far. While about 30 students have volunteered to tutor, only about 5-6 are consistently tutoring.
Senior Crystal Jiang volunteered to tutor with Smile. “The main reason I continued was because I could see the difference I was making especially in my returning clients’ lives,” she said via email.
It’s not only the clients that have benefitted from the tutoring. “I learned how to be a better communicator, educator, and friend as a tutor because of the diverse clientele I had,” Meng said.
Meng plans on continuing the program from college. “Our board of directors will probably be in different areas, too, so we’ll be able to establish several new chapters, as well as maintaining the one here in Charlottesville.”
When she’s not tutoring, Meng has spent the past two years as the drum major for the marching band.
In eighth grade she watched the Marching Band, and was fascinated by the drum major. However, she joined the non-marching “pit” percussion section and believed she had to, “back off on that dream.”
After two years in the marching band, Meng decided to audition for the drum major position.
“I really did not think I was going to get picked for the drum major, because I had zero marching experience,” Meng said.
Despite her doubts, band director Andrew LaPrade saw Meng’s leadership potential.
“Annie is definitely someone who can relate to all kinds of people, and be a mentor to people, but also know when it’s time to work on stuff,” LaPrade said. “She’s also just someone who’s super prepared, always really on top of stuff, and super mature.”
The drum major is in charge of some administrative work, like attendance, printing and laminating music, running certain rehearsals, and most importantly conducting the band. Marching band already requires about 200 hours, but Meng estimates she worked an extra 100 hours.
“Before the season even starts, I receive the show music and dedicate a lot of my time to learning the music and how best to conduct it in a way that conveys the emotion of the music,” Meng wrote in a questionnaire. “Many drum majors choose to learn the music as the rest of the band learns it, but I like to prepare the conducting so I can help the other band members learn their music during sectionals. It’s allowed me to connect with the other band members on a different level and form a relationship with each and every person.’
According to LaPrade, Meng also painted and created props, and designed the logos for the shows. “This year we had uniforms that changed colors in the middle of the show, and she sewed them all together,” LaPrade said.
In her junior year she had a drum major partner Laura Post (AHS ‘23). This year it became a little more difficult, as she was the only drum major. “I feel the biggest struggle was being able to adjust to being the only drum major, I didn’t have Laura to help me, but my teachers, Mr. Greg, and Mr. LaPrade really helped me.”
LaPrade has full faith in her solo leadership ability. “Certain types of leaders make it all about them; Annie is definitely not that,” he said. “She’s there to do whatever needs to happen for the group to succeed, and the band really responds well to that.”
When marching season is over, Meng steps down from the podium and plays bassoon, piano, and guitar.
Meng started taking piano lessons when she was 5 years old. In the fifth grade, her piano teacher introduced her to the bassoon. She decided to try it because she really liked the teacher. Meng continues to play bassoon in the AHS wind ensemble as well as the Youth Orchestra of Virginia.
Outside of school she enjoys playing piano and guitar because she gets freedom with what songs she plays. “I get to learn a lot of the songs I like to listen to,” Meng said.
Besides her love of music, Meng also has a love for math.
In her sophomore year she realized she wanted to continue to carry math into her future career when she took Precalculus and Calculus A/B at the same time. “I realized that I enjoyed calculus and learning about how the functions work,” Meng said.
“There’s a set answer, and you know you are always gonna get it eventually. There’s different ways you can get there, and I’ve enjoyed the process even though it kind of makes me cry. So in the end I think it is really really satisfying to get that answer.”
Meng plans to continue her math studies in college and go on to do graduate work in math education. She chose the math major due to the versatility it provides. She could be an educator, be a part of the STEM field, or even go into academia.
“Tutoring others is just something I enjoyed so I wanted to keep that open as a career in the future.”
