Earlier tonight I helped a fourth year high school student study math. It was only a year into my degree that requires minimal math to obtain that I realized I was alright with math. At least I wasn't afraid of math anymore, I know I can find the steps to the answer eventually. This feeling makes me a little cocksure sometimes, that's how I wound up tutoring math.
My action plan was: Help two students complete two assignments each night of tutoring (one hour a night for four days). Roughly twenty students turned out, one brought homework, that student didn't need help with math. I collected my two students and cracked the oldest math text I've ever seen. I had no idea what I was going to do. I asked the students what they were working on in school and what they might need help with and the first thing I was directed to was “Meter Reading.” Meter Reading? Meter Reading.
You can guess how much experience I have reading meters and how much help I was preparing to be. Thankfully the student who directed me there also realized meter reading was not on her syllabus so we changed subjects.
I lost half my students ten minutes into the session. It was just me and one other student, a student who was a little shy. I made the most of it though, we raced each other trying to solve volume problems with our calculators in our phones. I found out they don't use calculators in school. That's unfortunate. I have to relearn long division and multiplication.
The student I was working with had no interest in where I'm from and said his favorite thing to do was study. That last part is cool.
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