Tutoring an unruly kid

There comes a time in the lives of many young people when they start teaching instead of just being taught. In the case of Bangladeshi people in their late teens or early 20s, teaching children is something that is quite common.  It is a source of income, and sometimes, an extremely painful activity. And nothing makes teaching more stressful than having a student who's unruly.

A student can make your life difficult in many different ways.  The student may be too shy and not tell you what problems they're facing. On the other hand, they may be someone you already know from before and they may get too comfortable and not listen to what you ask them to do. Of course, there are also the students who are intent on making you snap and lose your temper with their rude behaviour.

Outside the classroom where there are no uniforms or rules, an informal environment is often created. The one teacher the student is scared of is absent at home and the fact that they're studying in their own can result in them becoming too comfortable. The student may forget to bring copies and books from their lockers and not inform you of what their teacher has been telling them. They aren't even bothered by the fact that they might need the notes and textbooks for their test tomorrow. They might be uncaring, clueless and stare off into space, and while you can't see what they're thinking of, you know for sure they aren't thinking about the math problem you just asked them to solve. This student will ask you to explain a concept you explained five minutes or five classes ago because they simply didn't bother to pay attention when you were first explaining it to them.

Students who do try can also sometimes be cumbersome. These students might be unwilling to try a new method and might be sceptical of your ways. They can be inflexible to the point where they might just tell you that they want to skip the material and focus on something else because they refuse to try another method. On the other hand, some of these students' eagerness might overwhelm you and their repeated texts and phone calls can become quite difficult to tolerate as their frequency increases with every class you take.

The opposite of the shy student is the student who won't stop talking. You'll know what their favourite sandwich is and who they had a fight with in first grade by the first fifteen minutes of your first class. He or she might make an honest attempt to stop talking about everything besides the subject you're trying to teach but might fail at it miserably. They go on and on till you yourself lose track of what you were trying to teach her. This student might make you feel guilty by telling you she has no one to talk to even though you heard her talking on the phone with someone when you knocked on the door.

However, sympathy and empathy goes a long way. You too were once a student who had to endure the class of a boring teacher and know firsthand how studying can at times seem absolutely meaningless. Making your student realise that you're not the enemy but rather there to help them can enable you to work better with your student so that they don't just get better grades but rather learn something new.