Learning to be a better student by being a teacher
- By Rethik Raj (Part time Medicine Student, Part time Tutor)
Tutoring is easily one of the most difficult jobs in the world. I don’t just mean academic tutoring. Teaching anything, be it academic knowledge or skills and values requires a tremendous amount of patience and analytical skills. After more than 3 years of tutoring students, I still find new struggles in the job every week. And that’s a good thing because it lets me know which skills I am lacking and gives me an opportunity to develop them, ultimately serving me well in all areas of life.
As a student, I was highly critical of my own teachers when I felt that their lessons were not up to my expectations. In retrospect, seeing their struggles as a tutor has allowed me to be more understanding of their situation and to be less judgemental. Issues such as latecoming and homework submission force you to take a stand which can be really difficult. Being a student and having done all those things myself, I can empathise with this. On the other hand, being a tutor and having to conduct classes, I realised the significance of such “rules” and systems. Balancing the two requires a unique set of skills which some are naturally better at and some like myself require improvement on. Moreover, when such situations recur, they can raise feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt – that something must be wrong with either yourself or your lessons. But such issues run deeper and require careful analysis. When you consider other factors such as social dynamics of students, peer pressure and academic competition, things can get messy. As students, most of us wouldn’t see or care about these things. As tutors, the awareness and responsibility allows us to see and care about these things regularly and when the pressure of the nearing IB exams is compounded, it can take a toll on both students and tutors.
Yet, tutoring can also be one of the most rewarding jobs in the world. Watching students finally understand a concept feels similar to undoing a really tight knot on a string. Watching them progress academically feels similar to ranking up on a difficult game after many tries. Watching them become more confident in themselves gives you the assurance that they will be fine even if you are not there. Such human connection is much more important than teaching content religiously and keeps you motivated even when you feel burned out. Being a tutor is not all about academics or teaching students only. Students are teachers too and ultimately no one knows everything. Viewing tuition as an exchange of ideas between tutors and students will allow everyone to learn something new each session.
Just as all of us have different styles of learning, we have different styles of teaching. Being a good tutor requires constantly adapting one’s teaching style to meet the demands of the subject, topic and students’ backgrounds, which takes practice and constant self-analysis. As I try to improve myself each week to best help my students, I hope that they find something they are interested in while picking up the skills to carve out their own path to a good life as they define it :)