Things Tutors Hate
We tutors are pretty flexible and forgiving people, but some things our students do drive us mad. Take a peek behind the curtain and see what things drive us up the wall.
This article is intended in light spirits for tutors and students to have a giggle at — we aren’t actually mad at any of our students!
We hate it when: you don’t tell us when your assessments are!
We don’t have access to your assessment calendar or what your teacher is telling your class except through you. We rely on you (or your parent) to tell us when the assessments are — and we don’t want your tutor to go running to your mum either! You can email or message us as soon as you get the assessment notification in class or let us know in your tutoring lesson.
We hate it when: you don’t leave enough time for the amount of work!
Sometimes students only start thinking about their assessment blocks a couple of weeks in advance, but if you have one tutoring lesson per week you leave yourself only one or two lessons to prepare! We try to anticipate what the assessments will be well in advance and prepare you for them weeks before they happen, but sometimes that’s impossible! If you know that 4 different topics will be tested in the exam, start scheduling extra lessons 4 weeks in advance.
We hate it when: you don’t study outside of class!
We know schoolwork can be scary or confronting, and we want to support you through it. However, there are some things we cannot do for you no matter how much we might want to. You need to read the assigned text. You need to memorise the word endings for your foreign language. You need to do practice exams on your own. Tasks like these are less effective when done in our lessons because reading will likely be slower, memorisation needs repetition more frequently than you probably have lessons and practice exams are supposed to simulate the scariness of being on your own in the exam room. We’ll help you with whatever you need us for, including these things, but the more you can do on your own the better.
We hate it when: you don’t check your answers!
There is no point in doing practice problems if you do not check your answers. Doing homework questions and getting them wrong is an awesome way to discover what you need more help with — and the ones where you were confident you were right, but you were actually wrong, are the most important ones to address. Your tutor will love it if you bring a list of incorrect homework questions to your lesson.
We hate it when: you don’t ask for help in the planning process!
We love it when you feel confident in your approach to the assignment, but please run it by us! Learning to pitch your idea to a boss or colleague is a great skill, and it allows us to catch any mistakes or misinterpretation of the task early on. It’s a nightmare when students bring their draft to the lesson the week before it’s due and they have totally missed the point of the assignment! It’s very easy to have a misaligned thesis and essay question. Let us help you plan and check in along the way!
We hate it when: you don’t know what you want to do!
Creative assignments can be fun, but when you have free choice of what topic or style to do, you have to choose! We can help you decide between options that you have come up with, but if we suggest the whole concept we would be overstepping our role and causing you to cheat, since the work wouldn’t be entirely your own. Come to your creative planning lessons with brainstorms, suggestions, vibes and other works to take inspiration from. We can help you synthesize that into a killer plan.
We are never mad at our students, even when you do things that we hate. We’re on this journey together. If you do some of these things, work with your tutor to break out of these habits. We can help you turn your wishes into action!