11 November 2009
+JMJ+
Tutor Tales, Volume 6
Sometimes I feel as if a tutor's job involves little more than following after teachers with a mop and a bucket.
It's not that teachers routinely make messes that other people have to clean up, but that there are certain messes which teachers don't believe it is their job to clean up. Speaking from my own experience, if I had a class of seventeen year old girls, all of whom were planning to go to uni in a year's time, I'd expect a certain level of performance from them. If they find it hard to understand an assigned text, I'd be glad to make that the starting point of our discussion. If they find it hard to understand certain words in the text, I'd expect them to know how to look up the words' meanings on their own. Any teacher will tell you that, after a certain point, if you can't swim, then you'll just have to sink.
Today, I find myself rescuing students whom, in my former position of power, I used to banish to watery graves. It's a whole other experience of the education industry--and a saddening reminder that, in much of this modern world, education is viewed as just another industry.
So how are the little darlings faring on my assembly line?
By all accounts, Doctor Nemesis is doing well! Last week, I was truly surprised to learn that, since we started studying together, his Maths average has gone from a D to a B-minus. This is because I have been breaking down every Maths unit into a set of easy-to-follow steps:To get the SPEED, divide the DISTANCE by the TIME.
To get the DISTANCE, multiply the SPEED and the TIME.
To get the TIME, divide DISTANCE by the SPEED.
I feel like a video game champion who is giving away all the higher level cheat codes to a player who doesn't even bother to hold the controller properly. That is: to a player who doesn't deserve them. I mean, there's no way that the Speed, Distance and Time formulas weren't discussed in class or explained in his textbook; he could have listened the first time around or looked them up on his own, but he preferred to make me do the grunt work.
And yet . . . I was almost as thrilled as his mother was when I learned of the improvement in his grades. Let's show those video game elitists in the Faculty Room what my boy is really made of!
After that minor victory, Doctor Nemesis' mother asked me to tutor his younger brother as well. (Yes, I love satisfied customers.) Let's call him Doctor Decimator and note that he is as different from his brother as night is from day.
You see, Doctor Decimator can sit still; he can keep track of the homework he needs to do; he can answer his exercises without ripping up the workbook pages with the nib of his pen; and he only needs to have his mistakes explained to him once. Oh, and have I mentioned that he can sit still? Without rubbernecking whenever one of the girl tutees walks past?
Nevertheless, I keep waiting for the bomb to drop. There's no way that this kid can be as wonderful as he is without there being some catch in the bargain. Right?
Please tell me I'm wrong . . .
6 comments:
Do you know the triangle for this? Draw a triangle, draw a horizontal line halfway up it, and divide the bottom section with a vertical line. Write "D" in the top section, and "S" and "T" in the two bottom ones. Then to see what you need to do to get what you want, you cover up the thing you want. You want time - cover the T, and you're left with D over S. ekcetra. You can do this for all sorts of things in physics as well, and all you have to remember is what goes in the top. (don't laugh, it made Standard Grade Physics a walkover)
+JMJ+
Yes, I know of the triangle. =)
Unfortunately, Doctor Nemesis needs everything written down, so after drawing the triangle, I'd still need to spell out the instructions for using it.
Berenike, you managed to get there before me. I wanted to explain about the triangle. ;)
+JMJ+
Now, now, young ones, don't fight about who gets to show off to the tutor . . . ;-)
Tutor Tales is turning out to be the best thing about this blog, I think!
+JMJ+
And not just for the Maths tips, I hope!
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