Tutor Take the Wheel!

By: Candice Wong

Your hands tremble in your lap, your lips slowly dry out as each minute passes, and your heart hammers against your chest as you await your unpredictable fate ahead; these are the shared signs of anxiety before your first driving lesson and your first tutoring session.

Okay, I guess that was a bit dramatic, but you can’t disagree that ‘firsts’ give you the bad case of the butterflies in your stomach. Despite the fact that you grew up observing the road as a passenger or experienced being the tutee for many years, suddenly sitting in the driver’s seat literally and figuratively as a tutor can leave your mind swirling in confusion. In both cases, you don’t know what to expect. Not all roads are straight-shot; to get through a tutoring session and a driving lesson, you have to take many turns and maybe even a detour to get to your destination.

Every driver and tutor must be equipped with basic skills needed to perform their perspective tasks. The driver first learns how to control the gas pedal and the break of a car before they head out onto the road alongside other drivers. Similarly, the tutor’s ‘gas pedal and break’ practice is the simple training they receive before their first official tutoring session. Usually, they practice by observing other tutors. However, practicing driving in a parking lot and tutoring in a room amongst other experienced tutors is less intimidating. The only way to truly learn tutoring and driving is through experience with real-life situations that give you the ability to practice quick and critical thinking.

Even if you seemingly do everything right—signaling before turning, breaking slowly, and stopping at every stop sign—the possibility of a crash is inevitable due to the mistake of other people. The same goes for a tutoring session. There were times where I believed I perfected all the steps to make a tutoring session go smoothly as a tutor in my high school's writing center. I greeted the tutee, filled out the information sheet about what the tutee would prefer to focus on, and I even took the time to prepare handouts that the tutee might need. However, the tutee’s negative attitude stemmed from a stressful day at school made me crash to a point of confusion. The only solution was to focus on the aspects within my control—how I was going to remain positive and productive in the session and fulfill my role as a teacher. I continued being enthusiastic and engaged in my session even though the tutee did not put forth such an effort, yet I accepted that it was out of my control. I understood where the student was coming from since I’ve experienced some crummy days too.

You cannot learn driving or tutoring by solely watching someone else. Both require practice that gradually increases your skill level. There will always be bumps in the road that you don’t expect (and students who forget their rubric, assignment sheet, and basic grammar rules) but you learn through what these road bumps teach. The perseverance through these road blocks is what makes a good tutor and driver and don’t worry; I’ve done my fair share of crashing into a street sign as well.

Questions? Comments? Personal stories you’d like to share? I’d love to hear all of them! You can contact me by email here.