My Inspiration for Education

Helping others has always been apart of my identity as a person. I see teaching as one of the most important jobs in our society. Teachers are the harbingers of knowledge to each and every new generation and can make all the difference in the direction the young minds they mold will go. I know for me, personally, it was these same outstanding teaching practices that inspired me to become one as well.

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My Tutoring Philosophy

Being “taught” something is not necessarily learning it. It takes a special method with custom nuances for all of us to individually grasp and comprehend information the same way. Sin teaching and tutoring, the information itself is “some of it” and the method itself is “all of it”. My approach to tutoring is using the time I have to not only seek to teach the student what they need to be learned, but simultaneously pick up on little nuances within how they respond to material and use it to develop my tutoring style for them as we go along. It can take hours to figure things out one way, and mere minutes when using another. I have experienced this phenomenon extensively in math courses that I’ve struggled with and understand the importance of method. Teaching without method is madness; Learning without method is madness.

Learning occurs in that “Ah ha!” moment we have all experienced when learning something and comprehending it fully for the first time. There’s no greater feeling, and there’s equally no greater importance when it comes to finding the particular way of wording or addressing teachable moments in tutoring when there is so little time to work with in a single session. The learning must take place as quickly as possible, and to accomplish this a tutor has to not only know their stuff but be adaptable enough to think in-the-moment when it comes to what they want to say, as no matter how much of the right stuff is thrown into someone’s ear it does no good if their mind is not receptive to that specific manner of teaching. I learn best hands-on and visually, so if somebody tells me what is wrong and explicitly how to fix it I will have a certain degree of struggle no matter how concise their wording. Sometimes people will need to be shown, others will need to be talked to, and others still will need demonstration to comprehend information the most expeditiously. There is nothing wrong with this, and it only makes a successful tutoring session that much more reliable when that perfect balance of teaching and learning has been reached.

For me, tutoring a student properly begins with the hello and the tone for the session is set within minutes of meeting. My ideal inclusive learning environment is when we introduce ourselves, identify the issue with the assignment that needs remedying, and all words and ideas are free to be bounced off between us. I encourage my tutees to talk about whatever they wish to talk about regarding their assignment because I believe that creativity breeds productivity.