Tutoring

Before I bore you with my ever-annoying thoughts, here is one fun fact: Simba has been selected to be an election officer at next year's General Election, and of course, there is no way for him to decline the "invitation". Hahahahahahaha! So you might just see him ushering people when you come to cast your votes in your neighbourhood next year!

My medical student is currently helping me more, as he's having a school term break. The girls in my office are anticipating to see him in person. Lol. A bunch of aunties lusting after a 22-year-old. Hahaha! :D

7 years as a tutor and I finally made my decision to quit the tuition centre... You might not know that teaching has started out tedious for me and till now it still drains me out of all my energy.

I have never been a great teacher and I know it best. Never once passionate about teaching, I don't envision tuition as a powerful tool in enriching anyone's knowledge, as my own tuition experience was a complete waste of time. 

Teaching was always a chore, and never once a joy when I first started out as a tutor; I was a really poor student and the only way to earn money in the shortest time is to make a kid listen to me for two hours. Inexperienced and young, I figured the best way for students to learn is to keep practicing and literally pray that the content will eventually be registered into the students' heads if they practiced hard enough. Although I took great efforts and pains to coach every student, I used the same method on them, and left the rest to God. Lol. I considered myself lucky when their grades improved.  When some don't, I told myself that there's nothing much I can do to help them if they don't help themselves. Complacent, I would never find fault with myself.

I think the leading reason that kept parents from dismissing me was that I was kind to their kids, never criticizing them no matter how slow-paced they were in learning, and I treated them as a mature friend. Because of this, they willingly helped me by trying harder than they used to.

Wisdom finally came to me along the way when I was tutoring for Joanna. She is the Korean kid that I always mention to my friends. She was Primary 2 back then when I first met her. That was also the time when she occasionally behaved and were other times out of control. As much as I want to deny, she's a brilliant kid, the most brilliant one out of those that I have taught. For many years, she perfected Math and scored full marks in every test and exam. She has been always the top few in her class, and was later transferred to a what we call a branded school in Singapore at the age of 10.

As she blossomed into a young pretty lady, she began to listen better, and I started to get better too, as she would encourage me by applying some vocabulary words I introduced to her into her essays, repeating back to me some grammar rules to abide by, remembering cheat steps to comprehend some words/facts better and doing the large amount of homework I left her every week. I began to explain more, leaving lesser time for her to do workbook. Part of the time spent in every lesson was for her to jot down the vocabulary words and learn them by heart. For the next lesson I would give her spelling and randomly select a definition, and she would have to spell out the word that matches this definition. Our painstaking efforts then began to exhibit returns. Okay, the first time she scored better could perhaps be attributed to luck, but she began to progress test after test, exam after exam, and soon enough we realized that this method was working. Quality over quantity - took me years to finally realize this concept.

Usually 2-3 weeks before her final exam, we would study for 3-4 hours (her mum will pay me for the extra hours) on weekends and we will go through all corrections from the past year papers she did. It was pretty intensive for a typical kid whose attention span should be by right way shorter but she is really not your typical kid; she can focus and listen very well. My expectations of her were sky high; I would tell her to behave and write like an adult and challenge her to think logically when writing essays. There should not be any juvenile stories and she should learn to give a strong opinion, back it up with substantial reasons and make a point in argumentative essays. 

In Science, she needs to be as explicit as she can, so that no marks will be lost from lack of clarity in the answers.

Joanna scored all A* for all her subjects for PSLE and her aggregate score was 257. She went to camps and interviews with the aim of enrolling in NUS High, and she was selected for enrolment after scoring them. Now she won't have to take O or A levels; she will undergo an IP program which will allow straight entry into university assuming that she does okay along the way.

I'm really proud of my little girl.

I was then asked to teach a few classes in a tuition centre, with 2-4 students per class. Life then became more complex; one kid running around the room is enough to drive me nuts, so imagine 3 kids now. It was triple the noise and the action. Time was mostly spent on getting them to sit and focus for awhile before they run wild again. I dreaded every lesson with these younger kids. Then... After plenty of failed experiments, I discovered that "death stare" is a foolproof method to get the kids to sit down. Haha! Always works like a charm!

I can't apply the same rule as the one I applied to Joanna anymore. I have less diligent students whose main enjoyment in their life was to idle the day away. This posed a huge challenge for me, especially when these students are in the same class with more industrious ones. How can I manage the pace of my lesson? 

I began to play favourites, something which I can't help. Naturally, pupils who are motivated appealed very much to me, so it only seemed justified to pat them on their backs more often and to encourage them to strive harder. But kids are intuitively truthful and have can detect your tendency to do something quickly; they would say you are unfair and that you love another kid more than them.

A very spoiled and emotional boy has been in my class for a year. He was a handful and really tested my patience. To be honest, I dreaded his presence mostly because he cried a lot, thinks he's very smart (frankly, he is far from it) and acts like a king. He would ask me to pick up the things he dropped (I won't of course as he really needs to buck up on his manners and respect for people). When he scored lesser marks than his friend he would cry. When his friends said something to challenge his lies (he would say those tall stories to seek my attention and impress me), he would burst into tears.

There was once he was so angry with his friend, he left the tuition centre and stood outside the classroom waiting for me to coax him to come back to class. I was indeed very mad so I ignored him for 20 minutes and flashed him a super buay song face before "inviting" him back into the room. 

Then he was sobbing so loudly on purpose to interrupt the lesson and invoked anger in me. I began overloading and forcing on him with all the values I believe in. 
"Why are you letting your emotions control you so much? How can you just think that you can do whatever you like and expect everyone to give in to you? You can't possibly think that everyone's lives revolve around you; you seriously need to change your attitude ..." I dunno how many hurtful remarks I have made but this kid seriously has some issues and needs someone to tell him what is seriously wrong with him, and that he's so flawed and needs to change for the better. 

He wiped away his tears and replied, pointing at his friend, "Do you know how I feel? He's always better than me in everything and he looks down on me. He laughed at me when I didn't do well..." Oh well, it was then I realized that the feeling of being inferior to others had made him this way. Perhaps I was too busy playing favourites I became blinded to the fact that his friend has been teasing him about his bad grades... Guilt sank in, and the tone of my voice became less harsh instantly...

Empathy... What I learnt as a teacher. Not every kid is brought up the same way as I was, and their behavior may be influenced by others' actions and something else upstream.. Be more empathic and observant, and give them the benefit of doubt. 

Praises are good, but don't praise all the time. 

I always give praises to a 14 year old kid with the right attitude, who always strives to do better than before. On his essays, I would almost never fail to write "Great effort!" and then I would reaffirm his effort with my words in class. Then one day, he said with a mildly formed smile on his face, "You always say that... :(" 

Positive reinforcement may seem like the way to go at least to me, but as I reflected on his words, I realized that maybe praising someone for everything that he does may seem superficial to him. 

Praises become small when I praise all the time in whichever way I say it, even though I meant them. Students don't know which effort deserves more appreciation than the other.

Treat a kid as an individual. As a teacher, I need to realize that everyone is enduringly different. The same method on every kid never works. The Madeline Hunter Method teaches teachers how to conduct a lesson in 7 steps and is known to "turn bumblers into geniuses". It has since influenced many in embracing these steps in their day-to-day teaching; however, many criticism was received afterwards, saying that it had treated teaching as science and a strict formula. Any attempt to impose "one best way" is doomed to fail.

A talkative kid will always interrupt you and you have to find ways to help him/her focus. For a quiet kid, you will need to encourage him/her to voice his/her opinions. 

You will need to go to great lengths to interest a lazy kid who listens to music throughout the class. 

Recently, boss and I have been reading a book entitled "First, Break all the Rules." (Ahem*, yes, I am erm "encouraged" to read it.) There was this insight that stood out to me, 
"People don't change that much. 
Don't waste time doing what was left out.
Try to draw out what was left in.
That is hard enough."
As a mentor, I have to recognize that change is slow, to induce a radical change in others can take months or years.

A good teacher is not just a teacher, he/she is an inspiration, a parent at times, and basically an entertainer that encompasses most parts.

I salute you, passionate school teachers! You have all my respect.:)

Felt the love from my student, Ki Hyeok.

Ki Hyeok hasn't been doing his homework, so I decided to call him during one of the weekdays to remind him to do them.

Then he began his attention seeking texts... 

I didn't understand the last msg he sent though. Why would you go to Raffles Place to uncover a quote? Weird.. Though I'm pretty glad that I just told him what a quote is and he picked up pretty fast.

I thank God that I didn't succumb to the temptation of applying to MOE (mainly because of its good remuneration), as teaching has been my non-talent, although it took me ages to realize it.