Am I stupid?

One of the most dreaded things a tutor may hear when working with a student is “I’m stupid.”  Why does this evoke such a strong reaction on the part of the tutor and why is this cause for alarm?  Why does this trigger an immediate plan for a change? Perhaps it is because so much of our own individual self esteem is locked up in our ability to read, write and do math well.  When we hear a student involved in such negative self talk, we cannot help having an emotional reaction.  Perhaps it reminds us of some area in which we struggled as a child or it humbles us to appreciate how easily we were able to learn basic concepts in our own developing years, but on whatever end of the spectrum we may have found ourselves, the strong reaction to “turn this around” is a universal one. When I am training tutors, I advise them right away that our job is to turn off that tape recording that is playing in the child’s head and replace it with a new one.
How can a tutor play a major role in reversing this negative self talk? It is the power of that one-on-one relationship that allows a tutor to integrate setting up building blocks of learning in small chunks so that instead of facing hard to reach long-term goals that seem unattainable, a tutor may break things down into smaller steps that are building blocks along the way, each of which is a target that when met assures the student that progress in being made and that the motion is constantly getting him closer to these measurable goals.  A child as young as first grade is comparing his performance to those around him and goal setting can be just as effective with a young child as long as we set up smaller, measurable, realistic steps as benchmarks.
We can be even more effective if we align ourselves with the school curriculum so that not only are we providing some remedial support to fill in gaps in learning, we may also assist the student in organization, assignment completion and self confidence. When improvement is noticeable to the teacher, the positive praise for which the student has been yearning produces the desired result. At Tutor Doctor, we take pride in this accomplishment.
Call Dawn Oliver with Tutor Doctor for a free consultation at 661-219-5335 and visit www.santaclaritatutoring.com.