Tutoring experience - Part 2

 I recently started tutoring a kid and I have to say that while it is rewarding and delightful to be imparting knowledge to the kid, it is also very frustrating and trying my patience. 

I met a retired school principal online and were discussing teaching experiences. He told me that he never taught kids who were not interested in studying. He explained that some kids while they may have the intelligence to study and understand, lack the interest to study. Such kids would not pay attention no matter what you do. You can try imparting knowledge with physical models, videos that are educational and entertaining but they would just watch it for the entertainment but would not show the slightest interest to study or learn. He further explained that one of the reasons maybe that the parents do not discipline their kids. They find that the kid is not doing well in school, hire a part time tutor and expect the tutor to ensure the kid does the schoolwork and pass on the responsibility of education to the tutor. 

Unfortunately, the kid I tutor fell into this exact category. She is intelligence and capable of understanding. However, she has not been disciplined to study or pay any kind of attention to studies by her parents. As a result, she would not pay attention to subjects she thought was boring, constantly questioned the need for education and hard work, would only read subjects that she found easy and never wrote or attempt to solve math problems which she thought was hard. 

It is very frustrating to teach such kids. Her father tried to teach her but gave up when she would not listen to him. She would wake up on time for school, but would sleep until 11 am during the weekends, would not study and play or watch tv the entire weekend. Her mom tried to teach her while doing all the household chores and working a full time job. Her dad called me for tutoring and explained that he wanted to hire a tutor to see if the kid would study and listen to a person who is not part of their family. 

Over the course of months, I have seen reasonable progress with the kid who managed to read when she could not read a single sentence prior to tutoring. I was very pleased to be ale to help the kid with reading and solving math problems. I have tried to make her learning experience enjoyable by including videos and visual aids. I keep changing my mode of teaching and coming up with different solutions to keep her engaged and adjust my methods to suit the attention span of the kid. 

It has been an interesting journey and I have learned a lot about myself during this journey. My patience has improved, I am getting better at handling situations when the kid gets disinterested and obstinate, coming up with solutions to gain the attention and methods to improve the reading and comprehensive skills of the kid. I would say that while teaching is a rewarding experience, it is important that the kid is interested in gaining knowledge and that would make it an enjoyable experience for both the tutor and the kid.

Tutoring experience - Part 1

 

I am tutoring a kid part time. She is a 9 year old, fourth grade student. I am in between jobs and thought tutoring might better way to spend time usefully. I also thought I might enjoy getting to interact with a kid.

The experience has been a mix of several emotions. Rewarding when I could see the progress made, joyful and grateful that I have been blessed with a mind that can retain and recall knowledge and education I gained decades before, frustrating when I had to repeat the same concepts over and over and sad when the kid shows no interest in gaining knowledge even though she is blessed with a good brain and intelligence. 

What I mainly felt after I started to tutor was the thankfulness and gratefulness for my teachers who taught me all the subjects since I was a kid through my school, high school and post graduate degree. Curiously I am not grateful for my teachers in college. I marvel at their patience to repeat the same thing over and over for an entire 45- minute period until the subject gets drilled into my mind. I am amazed that they were able to stand the entire day with very little breaks or water. I admire their stamina and perseverance not to give up on this lovely, blessed profession. 

I was a teacher's pet at school. Education was easy to me. I learned my letters and numbers at home as my mom always points out proudly. She taught me my languages and arithmetic at home even before I was formally enrolled at school. My dad taught me math at home from sixth grade until I finished high school. I was always a few chapters ahead of the math topics that was being taught at school because my dad would have already taught it to me at home. I would follow along and gain a deeper understanding and love for solving the problems when my teacher taught it at school. While my mom was very strict, I now look back with wisdom over decades of life's experience at what a wonderful mother she has been and how she was wholly responsible for my interest in education and cultivating my thirst for knowledge. She is not without faults and at times, her strictness and pestering were complete torture. While her methods were not always pleasant, I can see how she never gave up on me and always ensured my education was her number one priority. 

My teachers and principal at school loved teaching me. I was one of the students in every grade who made their profession enjoyable. Many would call my name out or express their delight in teaching me. One of the teachers was almost like a sister to me and remembered my birthdays, she never gave up on my abilities, never doubted me and always encouraged me and prayed for me. For her, I would be eternally grateful. I remember misogynistic attitude of some boys at school who said girls in general and I, in particular would memorize the text and reproduced it in exams. My biology teacher schooled them in the best possible way, subtly highlighting their own jealousy while praising me and encouraging the boys and explaining how their thinking was flawed and what they could do to improve their knowledge and scores. 

The tutoring experience brought back my childhood memories when I discovered joy for reading, a thirst for knowledge, my intelligence and capabilities to remember and recall exact texts, my love for illustrations and drawing, my favorite subjects. I particularly enjoyed languages, math, chemical equations, biology and learning about human body and systems and geography. The overall feeling is bliss and eternal gratitude for the world is full of knowledge waiting to discover.