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This chapter is about my two years as a math tutor and why anyone can learn math
I will first start by saying that I was never a natural at math. In fact, I had speech problems as a child this lead to reading problems. Both of those lead to problems with doing math. I had a private tutor before pre-k and a speech therapist in elementary. In short I struggled with many things in academics.
I became a math tutor as a work-study student. I started in Algebra and trig by the end of two years I was able to tutor up to Calculus 2 for Engineers, most of Finite Math for Business, and Calculus for Business (I never took the courses for business). I was also the one my boss asked for advice in many cases. Now don't take this as me being arrogant or prideful I'm only stating facts.
I was not the tutor with the most math knowledge or best grades. In fact, over half of my coworkers were in higher math classes or already completed math classes I hadn't taken yet. I had a few advantages though. I knew more about the brain, I had struggled to get were I was, I had more patience and I believed anyone could be taught.
During my time as a tutor I helped all kinds of people. Some young, old, with disabilities, and yes even hardheaded people too.
How did I manage that you ask?
Well as stated before I had my own troubles learning as a kid. I read a lot on how the mind works. My goal was to answer the question:
Can learning disabilities/handicaps be overcome?
The answer I found:
It starts with the mindset. Thus for everyone I tutored I changed their mindset before I helped change their grades.
You see math is a bunch of patterns. The good news is your brain is a pattern recognizing machine. This goes for everyone. That said anyone can recognize patterns and therefore learn math.
I also made math fun by using humor or making it a competition to see who got the answer first.
I even expected my tutee to improve. This helped their confidence and lead to them to try and think the could improve. I actually almost throw out a tutee's paper cause they knew how to do the problem. I know it seems harsh but she caught the error. I had one tutee who became as good as me and I would trust her to check my work any day. One student wouldn't believe me till he saw the answer and realized I let him miss it. Sometime people need to make mistakes to learn.
After I stopped due to my courses I knew all my co-workers and superiors and they all wanted me to come back. They still give me retired tutor privileges out of respect. I still think they have more math knowledge than me but I am grateful of their respect.
