Some math teachers love tutoring, and some can’t stand it. The truth is, many of us could make a lot of money tutoring non-stop from 3 pm to 10 pm M-F and all weekend long. So why are math tutors so hard to find? Because we are picky. After teaching all day, the last thing we want to do is more of the same with a (possibly) recalcitrant teen. Even though we may love math, and love teaching, and love teaching math, we need time to go on a walk, watch our kid’s basketball game, and/or do household chores. We’ll tutor, but only certain levels and only certain kinds of students and only for a certain amount of money. Once you put all those restrictions on it, you end up having lots of time to go on walks and fold clothes. About 8 years ago, I wrote some of my thoughts on math tutoring. As I talked about tutoring more with colleagues, one of them mentioned that the important thing is to build that relationship with the student, which takes time, and which might not be doable in a once-per-week setting, particularly virtually. That’s the thing about all teaching isn’t it? The trust has to be there, which means we have to build it.

There is one caveat, for me, anyway, and that is when my siblings and my friends reach out to me to help their child(ren) with math. It is near impossible for me to say no to these requests, especially if the student is in high school. This past year I worked with an unprecedented number (for me) of said children, SIX.

These teenagers I tutored this past year were all girls, all in high school, and all all but one residing in the North East, where I grew up. Their experiences in school and in the world are much more similar to what their parents and I experienced in the 1980s than what my own children experience here in Mississippi, even though 40 years have passed. There’s the rush rush rush of the North East that you just can’t understand unless you live it. I haven’t had a lot of in-person contact with many of their parents since were were in our teens ourselves so if was pure joy to connect with their children on a weekly basis!

Each time we met, I remained in awe of the technology that was allowing the tutoring session. We’d be working on the Law of Sines or The Mean Value Theorem, and I was having an out of body / time-travel type of experience because I was hearing my teenage friend, not their child, on the other end of the connection. (You really don’t hear that New York accent until you leave.) It was pure joy to see these students work so hard and take control of their own learning. To say things like, “I’m good on factoring trinomials as long as there isn’t a number in front. We need to work more on those,” or, “I know I sent you pictures of those graphs but I figured them out in class and have some different ones to go over now.” I didn’t need to spend much time getting to know them because they already trusted me as their strange Aunt Virge; they just launched in and drove that tutoring session EVERY SINGLE TIME.

I am not sure how many of these students I’ll work with again this school year, but I am hoping there might be two or three and maybe even a new one.

That’s all for now. I have a few more blog posts to finish before school starts on August 1st, so stay tuned!