Los Alamitos Tutors

About Los Alamitos

Today, Los Alamitos is a quaint community in the heart of Orange County, California. Its older homes dot tree-lined streets, built in the 1940s and 1950s for many veterans who came to California and settled after the second world war. But, not too long before Los Alamitos came to resemble the town people recognize today, the area consisted of farm and ranch land—open spaces and wealthy settlers aspiring to take advantage of the fertile land and pleasant climate were eager to make their mark on California at the turn of the twentieth century. Los Alamitos’ main crop and initial means to success was the sugar beet.

The sugar beet, like sugarcane and other varieties of root vegetables with high sucrose contents, needs a peculiar soil and a unique climate for its successful cultivation. The most important requirement is the soil must contain a large supply of plant food, be rich in humus, and be able to retain a significant amount of moisture. In essence, sugar beets need careful cultivation and deep watering to thrive. In addition, for successful growth, the land must be properly prepared. Deep ploughing is the first principle of beet cultivation. It allows the roots to penetrate the subsoil without hindrance, thereby preventing the beet from growing out of the ground and going bad, besides enabling it to extract considerable nourishment and moisture from the lower soil. Exposure to above-ground growth is detrimental to beet health—they need to mature away from the sun’s rays, deep in the fertile, wet soil where they can thrive.

Unfortunately, sugar beets are also prone to insect infestations. This is what happened to the beet industry in Los Alamitos and Orange County in the 1920s. In addition, the economic demand for sugar beets dropped at this time, and for a while, it seemed that Los Alamitos would disappear from the map. Thankfully, the city continued to grow, and thanks to some innovative ranchers, was able to stay prosperous by adapting sugar beet fields to finishing ranches for cattle, where they would go for fattening before being sent to a slaughterhouse. The settlers of Los Alamitos worked together to rent out the land—including the city’s ethnic minorities as well as whites—thus ensuring the preservation of the region.

Like the sugar beet, learning can only happen in particular conditions. Students must deeply immerse themselves in a subject—like the seeds of a sugar beet must be deeply immersed in well-ploughed ground. Nourishment in the form of reinforcement must be given to students, just as sugar beets require significant amounts of water. Tutoring is a form of this special kind of reinforcement, and the tutors in Los Alamitos are trained to cultivate the minds and habits of their clients, priming them for academic success. Setbacks may certainly occur, as they did to the sugar beet crops of the 1920s, but tutors are also there for quick thinking and innovation, further encouraging students to rise above challenges and stay the course.