Tutor

I'm not sure which of these is more likely; that people associate the word "tutor" with "miracle worker," or that I'm merely witnessing another manifestation of our society's obsession with instant gratification. I've had my name on the tutor contact list with the Mathematics Department for several semesters now, and each semester several things have happened without fail.

One of these is that most of my clients I see only once or twice. Now, sometimes this is because they simply want some help understanding specific material for the upcoming test. But what perplexes me is that there will be the student that claims to be ridiculously lost in a particular subject, but is never seen nor heard from again, by me, after the first or second session, even when I try to contact this person. It seems that the results I delivered right away were unsatisfactory, and thus this makes it obvious that I'm not a good tutor. Patience may be a virtue, but it's un-American.

Another prime example supporting my hypotheses always occurs at the closing of the semester. I suddenly experience a flood of emails from terrified students who have been behind all semester and now need to understand it all a week before the final exam (this is not speculation; these are there own words). It should be pretty obvious, I think: if you don't get something when you do the homework, take quizzes and midterms, then you probably won't get it before the final exam. We can't make you understand a semester's worth of material in three hours. That's why it takes a semester to teach. To any students or friends/family of students who are having problems in a class: Get help early! I always tell my clients (that actually stick with me) that if (s)he is having trouble getting the money to pay me, I will gladly cut my rate back, because I want to help him/her.

Thankfully, this semester I have one client who is sticking with me. He's willing to take my advice, and though sometimes I have to go over things several times, he is able to figure out why I tell him the things I tell him. I still remember a peer that I tutored once several semesters ago, in business calculus. He commented to me, "You've taught me more in an hour and half than my teacher has in a month and half." That's the good thing about calculus: it's an actual cumulative course, as are other higher-level courses that few people take, so getting the fundamental concepts down can make the entire thing much easier. It does unnerve me, though, to hear about how little some teachers seem to care about their students learning, particular those that teach courses generally taken by non-majors of mathematics, and/or how little they seem to understand the material themselves, in order to be able to explain it clearly to their students. It does make me excited, though, to have the chance to be a teaching assistant and hopefully help reverse the "I don't get math; math sucks" mindset in some students' heads. And, if nothing else, the aloof and incompetent nature of math teachers will always supply me with tutoring clientele.