Tutoring at Preuss school

Started today the tutoring at Preuss school near UCSD. The school & kids are amazing. The school is for children from lower income group, and is till 12th grade. I am planning to help in science fair projects and math tutoring. Met Lurisa, Lisa, Guam and Briana.. my tutees :-) They are in 12th grade, all on their way to college, and we were working on conics. It was refreshing to revise my knowledge, and help them along, and teach them how to think about the problem. My mind was drawn to my math teacher, Prof. N.M.Kulkarni who taught us in most interesting style. We literally used to sing formulaes in class :-) Anyway, I found I was able help them reasonably well when it came to solving the problem. But learnt an important lesson as well. When I was trying to emphasize to one of the girls, importance of learning completion of squares by heart, I stressed the point too much, and she took offense :-( So the lesson is, in teaching, it is very important to constantly gauge the mind of listener for alertness, interest, boredom, frustration, and never belittle and point mistakes, because, students especially in 12th standard have some touchy egos :-) It is better to engage them by positive reinforcements, pats on backs, and interesting chats.

Comments

anish said…
ameet! ur testimonial for me on orkut is reaaaally very very generous. thank you man. kay mag baki? lihit jaa i will visit ur blog. mi pan blogging karto. especially jevha homewroks/ assignments cha load khoop asto tevha :D. but i realise that grad courses though taxing most of the times are really helpful and give u so much confidence at the end. i met some really good people from Asha for education today. ghari jatoy 5 may la. peace life!
11:44 PM
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