What is the difference between going to school and having a private tutor?
It's a bit like going to a gym: if you wander in by yourself you may feel intimidated and either lose heart or fall into classes and do what everyone else is doing... but having someone their to guide you and encourage you, to push you and to lay off when appropriate - that's how we get the best out of learning!
I invest in the services of Guy Baker, PT working from Nottingham (he's also on facebook!). During the sessions, I'm the learner rather than the guide and it's good for a tutor to put him or herself in the learning seat (or on the bench in my case) and feel how tough learning can be! The focus is 100% on what I can do and what I have to potential to do and that's how learning should be!
At the top universities in the world, tutorial time is based on a one-to-one or very small seminars: in our one to one sessions, the pupil is gaining that wonderful focus that is offered in the highest academic places in the world!
The greatest businessmen and women often refer to their mentors - one-to-one tuition in how to proceed and run a business.
No distractions from other people, no mass produced material imposed on the mind - one-to-one offers pure learning at its best.
In a class, the pupil is a fraction (one in twenty, say, but it can be one in thirty) which means the pupil only gets a fraction of the teacher's attention at the best of times.
In a lecture hall - and for several years I was an academic lecturer - the pupil is merely a sound board: the lecturer broadcasts the information with the hope that some of the attendees are paying attention some of the time. It may be a great ego boost for the deliver and there's certainly economies of scale in sharing knowledge with so many people all at one, but it's not an effective way of learning. Most of the audience is not engaged 100% all of the time. Indeed, it is very difficult to pay attention for longer than ten minutes at a time, although we can stay "one the job" by coming in and out of focus regularly.
With one-to-one, our attention is undivided and we can concentrate on what the pupil knows and what he or she needs to learn. From a teaching perspective, one-to-one cannot be beat - whether you're pushing weights, learning dance steps, improving calculus, advancing piano skills, practising comprehension - the intensity is 100%. And when the focus wanes, we can adapt swiftly and either take a break for a few moments or change what is being learned.
At school - even the best of them - cannot always deal with the individual in the way that personal mentorship can. I've learned so much under Guy's supervision but I've also learned so much with my pupils. I say to ours tutors - don't forget to learn with your pupil. It's a mutual and mutually beneficial process - it's great fun too!
No comments:
Post a Comment