Maybe I did too well....

Hi everyone,
Just thought I would share this story. I taught a girl in year 11 this year (Sophie). She is a bright girl and will properly get a grade 5. She did no work before I started working with her and from what she tells me wasn't very well behaved at school. I would say she is one of my biggest suggest stories and if I had started working with her a year earlier she would be looking at a grade 7. Sophie has a brother in the year below (Justin). There father was very happy with Sophies's progress and said he may want me to work with Justin next year. I ask my students to complete an exam paper every week. I email these to the parents, I ask the students to mark the paper and if there is anything they aren't sure about we go over it in the lesson. Bare in mind that I taught Sophie trigonometry from scratch. She said she had never done it at school, more likely she was misbehaving and got removed from the lessons or wasn't listening. Towards the end of the year he asked if all Sophie needed to do was complete the exam papers. I said yes, so he has decided that he doesn't need me every week for Justin and that he has the exam papers so he is just going to make Justin do the exam papers. He has asked me if I would see Justin a couple of times to make sure he is doing okay. The father has completely missed the point of what I have done with Sophie, I am a little insulted but I have had lots of recommendations from other clients and also of parents asking me to teach brothers and sister. I am nearly full up for September so it isn't a case of I need the work but it's just that the father thinks all I did was get Sophie to do some exam questions!

(Obviously I have changed the names)

 

I sometimes get the opposite problem that people give too much credit to the tutor and think that they can achieve miracles. I had one particularly bright and hardworking boy who got grade 9 in almost all subjects..He recommended me to several friends, apparently telling them they'd be certain of a grade 9 if they had me as a tutor!

 

I guess some people don't fully understand what we do. At least you don't need the student, and it will be up to you if you want to be available for them for odd lessons, or not. I think if it were me, I'd not put myself out too much for this family. They will realise eventually the value you added.

I only ever share resources digitally if I'm happy for people to use them for free. Anything else is printed and partially completed in the lesson.

 

Someone should tell him he could have got all the papers free online if he'd known where to look.

 

Update: he has now contact me again to tutor his son. Apparently the son is struggling to complete the exam papers....

 

How did you reply?

 

That's gold! What did you say????

 

In answer to does she just have to do the papers, I would have said no, we look for the styles of questions or the topics she's falling down on and we focus on similar questions.
I would notst have said yes because that's not what I do

 

I kinda want to do that HA!! HA!! that the Simpsons character Nelson does when people metaphorically fall flat on their face! Some clients are so in the dark as to the hard work we put in. I had a similar thing with a client that wanted to tell me how to tutor their son. I gave her the boot and a few months later, she asked me to resume tutoring him again, as he was struggling under her 'tuition.'

 

Yes I know I thought he was asking does she need to do anything else for homework this week.

 

I have started tutoring the brother because I am a bit soft. So I got there and Justin said 'I tried to do the paper but couldn't get anywhere'. So I recapped most of Algebra we made notes and he did all the homework I asked and remembered everything I taught him the next week. He is a nice kid and I do like the dad inspite of everything. I felt vindicated after the progress he made in one week!