3 Reasons Why I Tutor

When I was growing up in high school, I would always get asked the question: "What do you want to do after high school?" My answer to this question was always: "I have absolutely no idea, but I know the next step is university" Now fortunately for me, I always loved solving problems/puzzles or finding a solution and had always wanted to start my own business. So I thought, well I guess the next logical path was to study and get a double degree in Engineering and Commerce.

Then i got asked the question: "What do you want to do after university?" You can probably guess what my answer to that question was: "I have absolutely no idea, but I know the next step is to get a job". As i noticed this vicious cycle of not knowing what to do with your life or what your next logical step is, I decided to look for a way to solve it... and I did! I found that the source of this problem actually starts when you're just a little kid and starting to set foot into the world of "schooling".

There is an expectation that you're MEANT to suddenly know what you want to be or what you want to do when you grow up but in reality, that doesn't happen for the majority of us. This is why it's extremely important to set a child's expectations correctly or else we're setting them up for failure. So I thought to myself how can I make a positive impact and break this cycle for future generations. That was when I decided to begin tutoring (www.tutoringbm.com) to provide an opportunity to escape from the cycle by providing the following:

MENTORSHIP

Mentoring is generally spoken highly of when you're in a corporate job, starting a business or just trying to look for advice. But this is highly overlooked at school. I find that having a great mentor throughout school is the MOST important aspect that every student should have. Being able to reach out to someone with more experience, can provide advice through their own journey and has been through the same situation that you are currently going through is extremely invaluable.

When I finished school, I had always looked back and wished that I had someone who I could lean on for professional and personal advice. This is definitely lacking within the school community and which is why I have made it a mission to ensure that I am able to help mentor all of my students to the best of my ability. Not only that, it is extremely important to have multiple mentors as they are able to provide different perspectives and life experiences to help shape your decisions.

Now I understand that I may not have all the answers nor that I am the best person to speak to. So in order to provide that opportunity for students, I find out their interests and utilise my network to connect students with others. I never really understood the quote: "It's about who you know which is more important than what you know" until I was trying to help students connect with the right mentor. Finding the right person to speak to really goes a long way.  

EXPECTATIONS VS REALITY

There is definitely a gap that exists within the education industry. That gap being the reality/truth and setting the right expectations for the students. All schools teach the same content, but in different ways. The teachers have a curriculum that they have to follow and the learning outcomes are set. The problem is, schools don't teach the students "WHY" they have to learn the topics such as algebra, differentiation or curve sketching and their relevance to the real world.

Students are just expected to learn what has been set by the education system but never taught as to why they have to learn it. I believe it is absolutely critical that a student understands the purpose of learning a topic and its relevance to the real world. Every student that I teach, I make sure that they understand if the topic that they're learning will be useful, provide any value in the future and the relevant industries that it applies to.

I do this because it's an amazing way to get students to stay focused and motivated to learn rather than it being forced upon them. It makes the students say "I WANT to learn this" rather than "I HAVE to learn this" and whenever it is something that you WANT to do, you are more likely to succeed at what you're trying to achieve.

TO FAIL IS TO SUCCEED

You're probably wondering how is failing the same as succeeding? Well let's think about it, whenever you're trying to learn a skill you never really perfect it the first time you try. You will generally fail the first few attempts until you figure out a way to get better at it.

For example, when you try to learn how to ride a bicycle, you'll fall a few times but then you'll get back up, learn from your mistakes and try again. You'll keep falling (failing) until you are able to ride the bicycle. Hence, you'll fail until you succeed and that has always been the key to learning.

Whenever I teach my students, I always encourage them that it is absolutely okay to fail. I'm not here to judge, grade or punish them for getting a question wrong. I encourage them to always attempt the questions and then afterwards we'll figure it out together. Explaining to them that it doesn't matter how many questions you get wrong, what is important is learning what you did wrong and being able to avoid the same mistake.  

I hope you enjoyed reading this and if this has resonated with you please share this with your friends and family as I hope to change the way we learn one step at a time. Also, please feel free to provide any feedback or comments as I would love to hear from you if this is also something that you think needs to happen.  

QOTB

"It's okay to not know completely what you want or what you should be doing, as long as you're doing your best to find out what that is."
By Benjamin Ma