Tutoring is a noble endeavor.

Usually, these are people who care deeply for others and take time out of their schedules to use their knowledge and expertise to help another person – often a stranger. Whether you are a student yourself, retired professional, or parent – tutoring requires a special quality.

So why is it so difficult (sometimes)? Here are a few possible thoughts…

Tutoring vs. Teaching

While both tutoring and teacher focus on educating others – or passing along skills and information – tutoring is not the same thing as teaching. Most times, tutoring focuses on a very specific subset of skills. Tutoring also occurs in shorter time frames outside the typical classroom environment. Teaching, however, emphasizes a broader curriculum and other structures that force students to move along with their classmates. The main thing here is to pay careful attention to the goals, scope, and structure of the tutoring context. Trying to do too much, too soon, will produce frustration for all involved (family, student, and tutor).

Student Consideration

Sometimes tutoring is prescribed for the student. Their parents may make them see a tutor or a teacher may encourage them to get additional help. In both cases, the student is likely to be resistant to the help at first. Imagine if you have struggled with something for years, and everyone around you makes you spend more time doing that thing – with a complete stranger! Of course, these strangers (tutors) have good intentions and are kind people; but from the perspective of the student, we must be mindful that it may not be received that way in the beginning stages. There are also times when the student actively seeks out additional help, but as tutors it is important to remember how difficult learning has been – and the impact of this.

Lack of Clarity

Related to point #1, sometimes there needs to be more clarity in terms of the goals for tutoring the student. Is the focus on homework, preparing for a test, or building foundational skills? Each of these priorities should be explicitly clear for the student, family, and tutor from the beginning. I recommend not offering “homework help” if possible; because homework is literally a moving target – new assignments/tasks each week (or daily). Having a clear outcome in mind helps the tutor and student recognize areas of growth, or areas that need to be addressed differently. There are a number of ways to measure progress: graphs, charts, quiz scores, etc. – but none of these will matter if there is no clearly defined goal from the beginning.

Read my first article in the tutoring series about addressing disengagement.