The other day, a 10th grader left me a voicemail while I was in the middle of another tutoring session. He was struggling with geometry and had an important test the following day. When I called him, he expressed how difficult geometry was for him, but he couldn't pay for a 75-minute session. I looked at my schedule and found that I had no clients in the evening. So, why not. I offered him a free 75-minute tutoring session.
When I sat down with him at a Starbucks near the Lincoln Center, he was confusing the area of a triangle with the circumference of a circle. Three-dimensional shapes made no sense to him. I diagnosed that memorizing and plugging numbers into formulas (his teacher's route to understanding geometry) was not his forte. So, we started with fundamentals and learned the MATH. We tossed the formulas and developed our own by understanding the basic concepts of geometry. We made a list of concepts covered on the next day's test and ensured that he had a firm understanding on each. By the end of the night, I drew bogus shapes, and he easily a) developed formulas to find volume and surface area and b) mathematically explained how he derived his answers.
Our session lasted for two hours. Unfortunately, he can't pay for our services on a consistent basis, but the thrill of helping him understand the MATH was enough. Plus, he was an awesome kid who just needed some additional support.
I asked him to text me after his test to keep me updated. He said he did well! I hope that his teacher recognizes that this student has an amazing potential to learn and achieve, so long as he's given the math in a well-explained conceptual manner.
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