Tutoring

I registered in a tutoring website a few months ago, and got an email today from a student saying she needed some help with her micro homework. I almost forgot about the registration, and was happy to make some pocket money when remaining unemployed. I went to see her at 2pm in downtown. This poor girl has been struggling with her microecon for quite a while. I asked her a few questions, and it looked like she had some difficulties in understanding Econ concepts or graphs. She reminded me of a lot of things that had happened in my life.

When I entered primary school, I was small, and not fully intellectually developed compared to my older classmates. I couldn't understand what teachers said in the class, or finish my homework; sometimes I couldn't even sit still in the chair for 30 min. My mother helped me in getting through the first few years, mainly by asking teachers to give me less assignment or doing homework for me when I couldn't finish them. When I went to middle school, I had normal intelligence, and was able to catch up with my classmates. Things started to get better ever since, and I seldom felt stressed by studies. But when I went to Princeton, all the pressures seemed to be back: unable to understand professors, participate class discussions or finish readings. WWS got a tutor for me and some fellows who were struggling with Stats. But anyway it's all gone, and I'm happy to keep a decent distance away from ξ, π, η, σ, etc.

My student has a good business sense but finds econ concepts too confusing. Thus when I transferred questions into real cases, she could get the right answers. But when facing all the graphs and hypothesis, she totally got lost. I told her that all these graphs won't help her succeed in the real world in the future, and she shouldn't be so harsh on herself. But she told me she wouldn't even be able to transfer to a better school if she failed to get a good grade by mastering these graphs. We spent two hours shifting supply/demand curves in the end.

This is not the first time for me to tutor people, but I've never felt so bad for my students. I taught foreign students Chinese in Peking and Princeton University. They were happy to hire me because they needed language skills in their research, and I was happy to find my teaching inspired them somehow. But this time it is different. She doesn't seem to be interested in econ at all, and all she wanted was a higher grade. Sometimes I felt I was a brutal breeder, making her swallow too much food without digesting them.

Confucius said, teach students case by case. I'm not sure if he was just bragging. This legendary educator had 3,000 students, I don't believe he knew all of them or developed different teaching method for each student. But obviously modern education cares more about coverage than individualization. Every year hundreds of students squeeze into the same department, taking the same class and finishing the same homework, no matter they like it or not. If you're not fond of the topic, at least you can switch to other departments; but if you're interested in the subject, while not used to the pedagogy, you're in trouble. As we all know, not every one needs to suffer through all the formula and proof to understand econ or work in business: people drawing downward supply curves (for normal goods) can still be an outstanding entrepreneur. But our education makes it unlikely for them to pass exams or continue with school if they do not prove themselves to be good at all these theoretical stuffs. And so sadly we always find our coursework in college, on which we have spent so much time on, has nothing to do with our future.

(South Park Math Tutor)