Volunteer Spotlight: Super Tutor Morris Rosen

August 15, 2025

As we head into another impactful year of tutoring, we are feeling grateful to Heart tutors, families, donors, and community partners for their dedication to Heart’s students’ success. It is a community effort to provide student support, and today, we’d like to shine the spotlight on a tutor who shows up each week for his students, Morris Rosen! Morris has volunteered with Heart for three years in addition to serving as a volunteer tutor with our fellow Charlotte nonprofit, Augustine Literacy Project. Read below to learn more about Morris’ experience as a math and reading tutor:

How did you get involved with Heart Math Tutoring and Augustine Literacy Project?

I retired three years ago as an electrical engineer where I used math all the time. Math was my favorite, and best, subject in school. As I was nearing retirement, I started planning what I would do when I retired. Someone with Heart Math Tutoring made a presentation at a monthly meeting of my neighborhood association and I decided I wanted to be a math tutor. My last year of work, I only worked part-time. So, I was able to tutor for two hours a week.

Part of math is doing word problems. I found that I would often have to help the students [with] the word problems. So, I decided that the following school year I would add reading tutoring with Augustine Literacy Project. I have been involved with both organizations since then.

My decisions have paid off. My first year as a reading tutor, I tutored a third-grade boy. The next school year, I wound up being his math tutor.

How do you like to approach or engage with your students to get to know them and help them master the math/literacy concepts you’re working on?

I usually spend the first minute or two of each tutoring session just chatting with [my] student about how their weekend went and ask them what they are working on in school. I also tell them a little bit about what I have been doing.

I will often take a straightforward math problem we are working on and turn it into a word problem. Sometimes, I will have the student create the word problem. The students liked that.

How have you seen growth in the students you tutor?

After having worked with a student, seeing them easily solve a math problem or easily read a passage that mere weeks earlier they struggled with. This is what has kept me coming back for more.

What would you tell someone who is thinking of volunteering as a tutor for either organization?

You will have an opportunity to help improve the educational outcomes in this community one student at a time. Not only will you get to see the students grow and gain confidence in their academic abilities, but you will also gain satisfaction from knowing that you played a part in making that happen.

Thank you, Morris, for your time spent advocating for and supporting Charlotte students!

Join Morris as a volunteer in the 2025/26 school year- choose your school, day, and time at https://heartmathtutoring.org/volunteers/become-a-volunteer/