Tutor? I hardly know ‘er!

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I mentioned in an earlier post that I was starting as a tutor at a local community college.

What happened was that a friend of mine decided to take some nursing classes at the CC (and man are his nipples gonna be sore!), and while he was on campus signing up for classes, he picked up an application to be a tutor. I heard about this and my ears perked right up. I did some tutoring in high school, and a ton more in college. Basically, I paid most of my bills in college by tutoring and working in the scene shop at the college theater. I greatly enjoyed being a tutor; my own level of understanding in a topic deepened considerably when I had to find ways to explain it to someone else, and there’s a great buzz in seeing the light go on in someone’s eyes when they finally “get it”.

I’ve done two days at the new tutoring gig, and the format has been very different from what I expected. All of my previous experience was where the college paired me up with a student for a particular topic, and I would meet with them for an hour at a time (once a week, twice a week? It varied.) to dive into a topic in depth. This job is run in a very different fashion. There’s a large study space upstairs from the college library. The room has several tables in it and each table has a sign with a single subject listed; Pre-Calculus, Calculus, several earlier math classes, Chemistry, Physics, Economics, Accounting, Engineering, etc. Students use the space to review lecture notes and work on homework, and when they run into a problem they flag down one of the tutors in the room. The tutor scurries over and tries to answer whatever random question the student has. The goal is to spend about 5-15 minutes with a student and then run away and see if they can handle the problem solo by that point.

The routine definitely keeps me on my toes. This morning I fielded questions on really basic “simplify this linear equation” math, a vector calculus problem, some geometry, a couple of Chemistry problems (unitary factor conversions, not even real Chemistry) and several Physics word problems (Newtonian motion stuff). There wasn’t much time to breathe; for three hours I just went from table to table to table.

It’s only been a couple of days, but I’m enjoying it a lot. Much like my experience in the accelerated pre-Med program a couple of years ago, it has me pondering going back to school for teaching credentials in a few years. I dunno; I have a hard time seeing myself in a classroom day-in and day-out; we’ll see how I feel after doing this for a little longer before jumping to any conclusions.

Of course, going into teaching would greatly disappoint my beloved high school Calculus (and pre-Calc, and Trig, and more) teacher, Mrs. Whitehorn, who passionately steered me away from a career in teaching. Hmm, was that because she cared about me, or because she worried about the students of the future? 😉 This was the same teacher who walked up to me immediately after I walked off the stage at graduation and said with great seriousness, “Whatever you decide to do in life, get out of Memphis as fast as you possibly can.” I certainly haven’t regretted following that little gem of advice.

2 thoughts on “Tutor? I hardly know ‘er!

  1. thatsassylassie

    Where are you tutoring at? I am taking math 95 at PCC and depending on how I do on my first test (tomorrow night) might be needing tutoring soon! 🙂 WHere and when? (I know the tutoring center is open certain hours, I just haven’t looked into it for this subject yet.)

    Reply

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