Success Stories

I've impacted a lot of student lives over the past 14 years. Here's some of the ones that stand out, I've changed names to maintain their privacy.

Little Y

I met this student at a tutoring center, the very first semester I was tutoring. She must have been my 2nd student ever. She was very quiet, seemed shy and sad inside. I always display high energy around students and crack a few jokes, especially at the beginning of a class, it just sets the right mood and the right tone for learning. I was able to get her to smile, even giggle quietly, but she was staring at her hands on the table most of the time. The lesson went on quietly, she seemed shy to answer my questions so I had diffculty determining if I was getting through to her on any level.

The second week, the lesson went on about the same. I pushed her a little bit more to answer my questions, I really need to know if a student is getting anything. She giggled at my jokes a little bit more, she answered a little bit more, but quietly, still shy, still looked sad inside.

The third week, when she approached the classroom, we made eye-contact and she burst out in a big laugh. She started making eye-contact with me during the lesson and she would answer my questions more freely.

By the fourth or fifth week, she seemed more interested in playing around with me and hearing my jokes more than the lesson. I had to re-adjust a few things, and I was concerned she might have had a crush on me, but she didn't seem sad inside anymore, at least not in my classroom. It turns out she had a hard time in High School. She had recently moved to Calgary from overseas, had great trouble with not only the English language, but the culture as well. Her habits, her interests, the contents of her lunchbox, the way she spoke, everything about her made her stand out to the other kids at her school. She didn't speak enough English to make friends, and she didn't have enough friends to improve her English with. It turns out our weekly lesson at the tutoring centre was the high point of her week because I was talking to her like she mattered and I showed her I cared.

These lessons continued for a few years, I carried that student through just about the entire high school science curriculum. When she graduated, she invited me to the graduation ceremony, at the Telus Convention Centre in downtown Calgary. I sat at the back of the room with her Mom and we made small talk. The ceremony had a number of speakers giving long boring speeches, but between each speech, the host of the ceremony would mention one of the students and their special accomplishment. Only 8 or 9 students got called out this way out of a graduating class of about 400, and you'll never guess who got called out first. Yup, my Little Y, "violonist extraordinaire." And there were a few pauses between speeches where video highlights of the graduating class were shown. These things only lasted a few minutes, and there's about 400 students in the graduating class. You'll never guess who was featured about 7 times. Yup, my Little Y. There she was standing in front of a packed cafeteria playing the violin, and walking down the hall in the middle of a group of friends and there she was again being part of the group on some field trip.

Little Y turned herself around little by little after we started our lessons. I made her feel good about herself, and that started everything.

That A

One semester at the tutoring centre, it was simply not possible to book a student in the Science room (my room) Tuesday evenings at 4:30. The room next door (the Math room) had a student that got the tutor shouting angrily for his entire lesson, every single week. That tutor had always been easy going, students loved him, he made math fun. Not surprisingly, he eventually became an actual teacher at an actual school.

The first week this happened, I was surprised to hear my friend shouting angrily at his student, but sometimes things happen. The second week, the same thing happened, and I thought it must be a difficult student. Sometimes, there's just nothing to do, the student just refuses to learn, and it can be frustrating for the tutor. By the third week, I asked around about this student. I was told Student A is as stubborn as they come, he answers incorrectly to questions and then argues with you about what the answer should be. We all know adults like this, right?

The following semester, it was now impossible to book a student in the Science room Saturdays at 2:30 because there was angry shouting coming from the Engligh room (the Science room is sandwiched between the Math room and the English room). That tutor is pretty easy going and laid back as well, so the very first week I asked about what's going on.

"It's Student A," I was told.
"Not THAT A?" came my reply.

The English tutor painfully nodded her head. Wow. That's 2 good and dedicated tutors losing it with the same student. He really must be a handful. When tutors would gather around for lunch, snack time or just had a down period, the talk around the front office was that Student A was punishment from the management for bad tutors.

Near the end of that semester, the front office approached me about Diploma Prep for Physics 30, easily the hardest course in high school. I always enjoy Diploma Prep, I get to rip right through a class and cover absolutely everything in 12 to 16 hours (spread over 4 lessons), instead of the turtle pace we often need to keep during the semester. The administrator knows this, so I was puzzled why she had a funny face when telling me this. I felt she was holding something back from me, and then it hit me.

"Who's the student?" I asked.
"Student A," came the reply.
"Not THAT A!?!?" came my reply.
"Yes," came the smiling reply.

Not that I have a short fuse, but if those 2 laid back tutors lost their cool every single week with student A, this guy must be quite the handful. As Student A was our favourite topic around the office, word quickly spread:

"Didja hear?"
"Yes, Francesco's getting him next!"
"Yes, Physics 30 Diploma Prep!"
"Really? How did Student A get in Physics 30?"
"I don't know! Francesco keeps saying it's the hardest thing in High School!"

Saturdays tend to be busy for tutoring. I had a full day of tutoring ahead of me, with Student A being my last class at 4. When I started my previous class, I heard the shouting coming from next door. Of course. Student A is getting his English tutoring first and then he's coming over here. During the 5 minute break we get between classes, I went to get some cold water like I always do and I started to mentally prepare for Physics 30, also like I always do. It turns out all the other tutors were done for the day, but they weren't in a terrible hurry to go home. I had completely forgotten Student A was my Physics 30 class, but they hadn't. Student A's other 2 tutors were lingering in their rooms, a couple more tutors were lingering in the office, waiting to see what happens. You see, I had a bit of a reputation around the office. I was the most experienced tutor, I had a bag of tricks up both my sleeves, I sometimes snuck into other tutors' rooms when they were in the washroom and either scribbled relevant puns on their dry-erase boards or fed their students witty one-liners relevant to the subject. Everybody wanted to see what happened when my irresistible force pulled on Student A, the immoveable object. Tutors and administration were giddy, this was going to be payback for years of pranks and puns.

So. He's sitting there and I'm standing here. I greet him, ask a few questions to try to gauge what level he's at in Physics, and then I start. The first unit is "Impulse and Momentum," so I open with one or two concepts, one or two definitions then the one formula. I pause, concoct a simple problem that covers what we've just seen and wait for his answer. He answered wrong. Not even close. He had things going in the wrong direction and going way faster than they should be. There was absolutely nothing about his answer that made any kind of intuitive sense. My diagnosis was not only did he not get what we just did, he has no recollection from when he covered this in school. I need to cover this like it's brand new to him.

I start over, teach him one concept and ask him a very simple question about it, and he answered correctly. Okay. Next concept, simple question, he got that too. Good. I taught him the formula, and now we are back at the problem that he had answered completely wrong the first time. He got it right this time, spot on. I kept going at that pace and the lesson went well. We didn't cover as much as I had hoped, but he solved problems correctly and entirely on his own. He was understanding what I was teaching him and I wasn't shouting.

Once the class was over, my day was over. I grabbed the textbooks and walked to the office where a small crowd of tutors and administrators was eagerly waiting, all smiles and grins. I smile back at them and return the textbooks to the shelf.

"So? How's Student A?" asked the administrator.
"He's great!" was my reply.
"WHAAAT?" belched the English tutor.
"Wadaya mean, great?" asked the Math tutor.
"You just need to slow down a little bit with him and he gets it," was my matter-of-fact reply.

They were all staring quietly at eachother as if David Copperfield just took your wallet and pulled an elephant out of it. I glanced around the group, expecting more questions or comments, and when that didn't happen I walked out to my car. Then I heard:

"Oh he's got a learning disability," from the English tutor
"Maybe, but if you slow down just a little bit, he gets it," was my reply, walking backwards to my car.

Tutoring that student was an exercise in patience, yes. You needed to go much slower than what felt like a natural flow to you, yes. I'm not a psychologist or a specially trained educator, so I can't make the determination that this student has a learning disability. A lot of my students have learned English as a second language, so he may only have a language barrier for all I know. All I know is if I slow down just a little bit, he gets it. Two very good tutors didn't see that because they were too busy explaining and re-explaining things to him. But I saw it. I didn't do anything special, it's just I've had so many students over the years, I know sometimes some things are difficult to understand and you just need to take it slow. I went home feeling pretty good about myself that day.

Walk the Dog

This was the younger sibbling of a former student. The Mom called me hoping I remembered her (I did), her younger son needed help with Physics 20. We sat down and went over some things and I found he had a poor grasp of the concepts. While he was looking through his binder for his formula sheet, I saw a quiz with a mark of 50%.

We kept going with our twice-weekly lessons, and after 3 weeks he had another quiz. 96%. It turns out this student didn't have a problem with Physics, not really. He had a very bad teacher that made Physics seem as mysterious and complicated as witchcraft. Our lessons made him realize that Physics 20 is actually quite simple, his confidence shot through the roof and he was now able to manage on his own with the textbook. I didn't do much Physics with this student for the rest of the semester. We dropped our lessons to once per week, and we shifted our focus to Chemistry instead.

Pet the Dog

This was another younger sibbling of another former student. He was in a program for gifted students, but his marks weren't lining up with his understanding. We sat through lessons on a regular basis and I could tell he understood the concepts well enough to get mid- to high-80's, but again his tests were coming back in the high-60's or low-70's. Normally, I will carefully read through the quiz, or test or exam to see where mistakes were made, but this was not possible in this case. You see, this student attended a Calgary school that did not give graded tests, quizes or exams back to the student for them to take home. I always thought that was a completely dishonest practice that should be banned, but this school found a loophole in rules and regulations.

You see, educators believe that a student has the right to have his or her exam, quiz or test returned to them after it is graded so they can look it over and learn from their mistakes. But there is a provision in the rules and regulations that allows schools, school boards, even the government itself to declare a test, quiz or exam "secure," which means all copies of the test, quiz or exam must remain at the school at all times, even after they are graded. The intent of this is to keep special exams like Diploma Exams private and confidential, and this makes sense. But this Calgary school declared ALL their tests, quizzes and exams "secure" so that the poor little teachers wouldn't have to concoct a new quiz, test or exam every year. Students are allowed to look up their secure exam, but only have a 2 week window to do so, and it must be either in the administration office or under the supervision of the teacher. I needed to see these exams.

The Mom was equally frustrated with this practice and she really wanted me to see these exams too, so she arranged for me to go to the school and review the exams for myself. This, as you may imagine, required some doing. Adults can't just stroll into a high school. I was to contact the vice-principal, who was aware of the arrangements, and he would escort me to the teacher's office. Once there, I was free to peruse all the quizzes, tests and exams this student had written for the current unit, and I was astonished. He missed easy questions that I KNEW he understood. And his incorrect answers to these easy questions were of the type that suggested to me he was either rushing or freaking out. During our lessons, I did notice that this student did enjoy taking his sweet old time doing problems, so it would only be natural for him to feel rushed when there's a time limit.

I texted my findings to the Mom, she talked to the student and he admitted to feeling rushed like he was going to run out of time during the exam. Thankfully, his gifted program allowed him some freedom in a number of areas, one of them was the time allowed to write an exam. The Mom made the request that he be granted a lot more time during tests, it was approved and then his marks shot right up to where I thought they could be, even a bit higher for some units. That's all that student needed.

Dee

Dee was a university student that was referred to me from another student of mine, a classmate of hers. We met in the campus library and started going through some stuff. I found that although she had a lacking understanding of the subject matter, she was sharp. She knew what she didn't know, and once she got something, 3 lightbulbs went off and she rolled with it. The number of "Ooooh!" and "Aaaaah!" I got from her in that first lesson were tell-tale signs that her teacher wasn't making any sense whatsoever, so I knew what I had to do.

I skipped from main topic to main topic, getting a feel for which ones she grasped and which ones were a total mystery to her. There was no middle of the road, another tell-tale sign of a bad teacher. Finally, near the end of the lesson, we tackled one of the harder topics. I walked her through it and at the end of it she just yelled out: "Why aren't they teaching it to us like this?!?!?!" I had a self-satisfied grin on my face. You see, I had a applied at that university to be an instructor just a few years before when they had an opening, and I never heard back from them. Now, here I am cleaning up a mess created by whomever actually got the job.

I didn't see her too many times after that. Once she realized it wasn't her, it was her teacher that was holding her back, she started relying on the textbook a lot more for understanding, not her teacher. It's one of the best outcomes of tutoring: you make a student realize they're good enough, now they have the confidence to go at it alone.

Long I

Long I was refered to me by her cousin for Grade 9 Math. She was getting mid-50's to mid-60's, and Mom wanted her to get more. We started our weekly lessons and I quickly found she was lacking in concepts from previous grades that were needed in this grade. I had the daunting task of going over what she didn't get from school while at the same time catching her up on what she was missing from previous grades, and I only had 1 hour per week to do it.

I saw steady improvement in her understanding, but her grades only went up a little bit. Asking her how this week's quiz or test went, she would always say "I don't remember anything about it," a tell-tale sign of test anxiety. What I started doing was whenever we would solve problems, I would pester her: "What's the answer? Come on, come on, come on! Quick! Quick! Quick! Hurry! Hurry up! Faster! Faster! Faster!" Yes, I can be annoying, but she knew what I was doing because I told her what we were doing. I got her used to solving problems under pressure. If she can do it with me bugging her non-stop, imagine how much easier it's going to be on the actual exam when I'm not there and everything's quiet!

I carried Long I through all of high school Math. It was a long road, but her grades steadily improved. She started with mid-50's to mid-60's in Grade 9. She was getting mid-60's to mid-70's in Grade 10, Mom was so relieved. She got mid-70's to mid-80's in Grade 11, and was getting mid- to high-80's in Grade 12. She would occasionally get low- to mid-90's on the odd test, and she would sometimes bomb with a mid-70's or a high-60's, but she had a steady average of mid- to high-80's.

And then, it was Diploma Prep time. Mom booked me for 8 lessons in 2 weeks just to review everything and get her ready for the Diploma Examination. Since it typically takes me 12 to 16 hours to cover everything, Mom and I had planned those 8 lessons of 2 hours to cover everything and do a practice Diploma Exam. After the third lesson, we had covered everything already, Long I just knew her stuff. She still remembered just about everything, we just ironed out a few rough spots. I cancelled the next 3 lessons, because there is such a thing as overpreparing, and kept the last 2 lessons to go over the practice Diploma Exams I had left her. She would take the practice exams on her own time and we would just go over questions she missed. Mom wasn't too thrilled about me cancelling the lessons, but I had to insist: I've seen too many students bomb the Diploma Exam because they over-prepare and by the time they are sitting in the actual Diploma Exam, their brain doesn't want to do this anymore.

Mom trusted my judgement, probably because she remembers the journey we had been on for the previous 4 years. Long I went into the Diploma Exam, she was calm and serene, and I got a text message 3 weeks later when I was returning from a business trip out of town. The Diploma grades had been released, and she got 92%. Ninety frigging two. She started from mid-50's hating Math, now she was actually liking Math. Like many students, Long I was trapped in a vicious little circle: she wasn't good at Math, so she naturally hated Math; since she hated Math, she naturally wasn't very good at Math.

Nurse

This was an older lady who needed to upgrade for professional reasons and the class she was struggling with was university-level Statistics. She already had a tutor, but the tutor was leaving for holidays just as Finals were approaching. Her tutor had found one of my ads and had contacted me to cover for her. Since this was a straight substitution at the tutor's request, I would get paid the fee she was getting paid, which was much higher than mine.

I met this lady, and I quickly found out that she had a very good understanding of the statistics part of the course, what was tripping her up was using the calculator to perform the calculations and explaining the meaning of the answer. She showed me her calculator and it wasn't a statistical calculator, it was a scientific calculator. Although it could do the statistical calculations we needed (these are too complex to be done by hand in the time allowed), it was a clumsy calculator to use and I couldn't figure out how to do half the statistical calculations properly with it. Thankfully, I had my rickety 20-year-old calculator with me. Although it was also a scientific calculator, I knew how to perform the statistical calculations we needed with it. I showed the lady how to use it and I asked her to find the instruction manual for her calculator for our next lesson, or ask her son (whose calculator this really was) for help with using her calculator to perform statistical calculations.

Before our next lesson, she called me and wanted a special lesson. She had found my calculator so easy to use, she noted the brand of it and bought an appropriate statistical calculator of the same brand, now she needed me to teach her how to use it. There we were, sitting at a Wendy's late one night, me speed-reading the instruction manual and then showing her how to perform the statistical calculations she needed. It was a very neat calculator she got herself, it was simple and easy and intuitive to use, she tried a couple of problems, got the right answer and she was so happy. The rest of our lessons focused on other things she was lacking, mostly high school stuff from 40 years before.

Then, things got weird. While we were going over stuff, I suddenly realized that her previous tutor was actually the instructor teaching the class. I couldn't believe a university instructor would charge $50/hr to a student who needs extra help with the class they are actually teaching. It begs the question: how good of a job will you be doing teaching this in the classroom if you stand to make extra money if they don't understand? I also couldn't believe a $50/hr tutor wouldn't have realized that this student was struggling with her calculator (it's the first thing I noticed: she wasn't entering things into the calculator very quickly, her finger was hovering a lot like she was looking for which button to press next), or that this student had no idea what the Grade 10 concept of slope was. I was simply glad this student got sent my way so she got the help she needed.

Then, things got weirder. The tutor/instructor came back from vacation and she asked for a meeting with me. I expected something like a follow-up, but that's not what this was. I told the instructor what the student's weaknesses had been and she brushed them aside as minor and unimportant. Then she tried to hire me to tutor her students and we would split the fee. She was doing it for the money this one, and had zero teaching skills.

Working Mom

I call myself a High School tutor because that's what I like to focus on: I know the math and science curriculum backwards and forwards to the point where I don't need a textbook. Just give me something to write with and I'll give you the low-down. But I do also help university students with math and science, but those classes tend to be more challenging for me, as there is no standard curriculum: instructors can teach whatever they want in any way that they want. I always tell these students to bring their notes and bring their textbook. Most often, students get the main concept, they just need help with little things, and I can figure those out from their notes and their book and then explain it to them. This lady had a whole other level of challenge in store for me...

Massage therapy. Say what? It started out easy enough: high school level biology and latin terms. I just needed her book to tell me what to cover. This lady went to her college for 4 hours in the morning, then worked her 8 hour job, and then she had a 2 hour study session with me every single day, on top of running a household of 4 and being ESL. We progressed through the first few chapters well, I would explain things simply for her English level and I gave her silly little tricks to remember the technical terms and their meaning. I taught her how to make flash cards and she would keep them in her purse so she can study when she had a short break at work or while being driven around. She was getting mid-90s on her exams and I was feeling that I was helping her.

And then, it happened. One morning, her teacher was late. They had an exam scheduled that morning, and the rest of the class was kind of glad the teacher wasn't there. They weren't ready. The rest of the class don't have full-time jobs while going to college and don't run households while studying, and they speak English at a native level, but they still weren't ready. My student stood up, grabbed her flash cards from her purse, marched to the front of the classroom and riffled through the deck of flash cards, giving her classmates all the little tricks I had taught her for remembering the words and their meaning. Not only was she reviewing out loud for her own benefit, she was helping her classmates with an effective cram session. And that's when the teacher walked-in. He just stood there, in the doorway, observing the scene. He gave her an exemption from writing that exam, since she obviously knew her stuff. She left early to go to her job and made a few extra dollars there.

And then, it happened again. This student had to skip an entire morning of classes to take her daughter to a medical appointment. What they were going to learn that morning was going to be on the exam THE NEXT DAY. Since I was available, she had arranged for us to have our tutoring session in the morning, right after the medical appointment, so she could study this new topic during her breaks at work and in the evening before bedtime. The topic was a group of muscles, she had to learn their names, their location, how to find them (by touch) and which motion does each muscle perform. And I had never heard of most of those muscles and I had no idea we had so many muscles in that part of the body and now I need to find them with my fingers? I grabbed her textbook, speed-read the section while poking at those muscles on my person and then turned around and taught her about this cool thing I just found with my fingers. And then, we did it again, just to make sure we didn't overlook anything major and it all made sense. The next morning, she went to the exam. The way this exam worked was the instructor would call out a muscle and everybody in the class would show with their fingers where the muscle was located and then do the motion that the muscle performed. The instructor was looking for both correctness and confidence, the latter to make sure students weren't just taking cues from their classmates. This is how these types of exams are conducted. That's not exactly what happened that morning. My student always sits at the front because she's a keener. The instructor called out a muscle for the entire class, my student did her thing, unable to see what the rest of her classmates were doing, and the instructor made a face. My student thought: "Oh no!" The instructor called out another muscle for the entire class, my student did her thing, and the instructor's face got worse. My student was starting to think she must have mixed up some of the muscles. The instructor called out a third muscle for the entire class, my student did her thing and the instructor walked out of the room. "I need to check something," he said. My student turned around to ask her classmates what was going on, and they said: "You're doing something completely different than us." My student thought: "Oh noooo!" The instructor came back with another instructor, and he called out a fourth muscle for the entire class. My student did her thing, and the second instructor pointed at her: "She's doing it right" and walked out. The instructor, an experienced registered massage therapist, got the muscles wrong and taught the entire class wrong. The High School tutor who can read a textbook got them right. And the working Mom, with a full-time job and 4 mouths to feed, got them right too.