Often in tutoring students, the barrier to understanding is rarely a lack of intelligence, but of confidence.

Years and years ago, my year six teacher once sat the whole class down, and gave us a talk, as she usually did. This talk, however, has stuck with me to this day. “Everybody is their own kind of smart”, she said. I feel it is especially in my tutoring that I’ve seen this to be true; each and every student I’ve had is uniquely bright, going about topics or problems in their own complicated and special way. Though, when these kids struggle through their problems, often they won’t be feeling just confused, but defeated – already deciding the problem on their page is a fortress they cannot breach. However, lacking understanding never means a lacking capability.

My role, then, becomes less about imparting knowledge and more about dismantling this fear that halts them from moving forward. Tutoring is a way to teach students that learning and getting things wrong doesn’t have to be such a scary and impossible process, by abandoning the textbook’s prescribed order and find one small, winnable battle. It might be taking another angle, teaching a method or helpful tip that really helped me as a tutor when I was a student, or even dumbing down the problem into a simplified form that covers the base concepts only. The moment they find that first correct answer is often accompanied by a surprised “Oh!”. The dynamic shifts, and the fortress walls give way to a door.

This small victory creates a sliver of confidence – a “proof of concept” in their own ability. From there, it is a constant process of baby steps forward – each subsequent step being slightly harder, but now taken with a bit more trust. The question changes from “Can I do this?” to “What do I do next?”. They no longer succumb to this impossible fear, but now move forwards as they learn, fluidly.

It is in this that my old year 6 teacher’s message really resonates – everyone is their own smart. Everyone is bright. Everyone is capable of doing amazing things. School is it’s own thing, sure – but anyone can learn to do it well in their OWN way. Academic subjects are not walls to be scaled by the gifted, but landscapes to be explored by the brave – and my primary job as a tutor is to hand them the map, and convince them they are explorers.

Zac Xavier Markovina