A Bittersweet Venture

The idea that a person learns better when there’s someone else nearby is one that I’ve been a firm believer in. I felt like this was the perfect time to write about this topic and my personal experience with it since a similar one was just brought up by our teacher today in class. 

Our teacher talked about the zone of proximal development (ZPD) which refers to the difference between the tasks a learner can complete without assistance and the ones they can reach with guidance from someone more skilled. Tasks within the ZPD are optimal for a learner to grow in that subject area since they are neither difficult enough to completely stump the learner nor too simple such that the learner is not getting any value after putting time in. 

If you were to think about it in terms of a figure, you’d have 3 concentric circles like the one attached below, and my goal when I’m tutoring my students is to explain and break down enough concepts that when we reach the problem sets, I’ve expanded their green circle enough so that it covers all the topics and skills that appear in the problems. 

It’s quite a bittersweet job. Being a tutor, your ultimate goal should be to guide a student to the point where they no longer need you. On one hand, I really like teaching students who pick up the materials fast, but those kinds of kids are also the ones who stick around for the least amount of time. Tutoring a student who learns things a bit slower is more of a long-term project, yet the gratification you get when those kids come up to you with a wide grin on their faces is just unmatched. 

To keep your place as a tutor, you must have things left to teach. This truth has acted as motivation for me to keep venturing into unfamiliar territories in front of my students, in order to double back and guide them later. You learn to remember each realization you have while learning the new material, and try to inch your students toward those understandings when you instruct them. Seeing the lightbulb inside your student’s mind suddenly flickering on when the gears lock into place is another one of the joys that just drives me to keep tutoring and helping as many as I can reach.