Tutoring

Over the break, I was asked by Luca Marin, a close friend of mine if I could tutor him for math so that he could catch up on what he had missed. While considering whether or not to do so. My main worry was whether or not I had sufficient knowledge to actually teach him and make sure that he was prepared to succeed in IB math. I choose to accept and looking back I have gained self-confidence and developed new tactics to teach. I have always been aware of my mathematical skill but I have always doubted whether or not I shined because I had the real skill or because I was surrounded by people with less mathematical talent around me. Yet, this tutoring experience allowed me to realize that I truly do have a skill few people have. The lessons that we were focusing on was the basics of geometry to more advanced parts of geometry. What I struggled most with was understanding how difficult math was for some people. The lessons we started with seemed so basic to me but I had to learn to take a step back to understand the perspective of Luca. It was also hard for me to understand why he needed my help. We were learning from a book and I had seemed to forget how the majority of people learn math. For the entirety of the first trimester, I had been teaching myself math through materials given to me by pamoja. This is a very similar situation and I struggled to realize that most people can’t learn this way. This was a struggle in the beginning but as I learned to be more patient, direct, and comprehensive to what Luca needed the process of tutoring became much easier. But the most important thing for me from this experience was the reinforcement of what I already knew by reviewing content but also the gained confidence that I have the talent to be successful in math.