What It Means To Be A Tutor

- By Maretta Simon (Part time Yale NUS student, Part time tutor)

In my lifetime as a student, be it in middle school, high school, or college even, there has never been a time where I felt like I knew everything that was taught completely. There are so many things in this world for you to know and explore, the conception of complete knowledge is as fickle as it sounds, indeed. However, when you need to study to prepare for the exam, such as the IB exam which technically is supposed to determine your future (*to a certain extent only, folks!), the pressure to understand all that is tested is real, and that is scary.

As a Chemistry tutor who took the IB too, I could completely relate to my students’ plights, especially when Chemistry is not something that comes to you naturally. It gets frustrating when you feel like you cannot understand certain concepts that to others seem easy. it gets even worse when you actually want to do well in it, but you just could not seem to perfect it. One of my students candidly told me that when they asked their schoolteacher how to genuinely improve in Chemistry, their teacher just told them to “memorize the entire textbook”. Well if that was not a discouraging answer, I don’t know what is.

However, as I was doing more practice questions to help this student, although they have not become fully confident in the topic yet, I could see them becoming more interested, becoming braver in trying out the questions on their own despite not knowing the correct answers. And I can sincerely tell you that this is honestly one of the greatest things about becoming a tutor. It is never the grades that the students produce, nor the praises their parents give you for helping them, but the small, but sincere gestures that show that they are a little more encouraged, a little more empowered, and a little more interested in the topics and subject as a whole. By the end of our lesson, the student told me that they were thankful that I was so patient with them. And at this I smiled, a kind of smile that is so heartwarming because this affirmation just edified my thankfulness for them being braver to try more questions as they progressively became more comfortable with Chemistry that they once feared.

Although the road to a better grade (which will be a bonus to me and to them, of course!) may be rocky, these small steppingstones are just as important to cherish. And for that, I am grateful to be given a chance to tutor students. I just hope that this scary IB journey can be less scary with the correct guiding hands, and that students do feel like they are not alone in this tough journey to become better! Take care everyone, hopefully there is something small that makes your heart brims with hope just like I had today.

Don’t give up, ever!