Teaching is About Perspective

The ideal learning partnership consists of three stakeholders: student, tutor, and parents.

A few months ago I was at a football game in Oklahoma. One of the parents sitting behind us was talking about how his son, who was playing, wanted to go to college for engineering. But, he wasn't good at math and school, which probably won't work well for engineering school, but he does work well with his hands. So, the father thought it would be a good idea for him to go to trade school or do an apprenticeship. It sounded like they had some major disagreements about it, and the mother agreed with that.

It's hard to say how it'll come out, but it's not unreasonable to think that it will go like many other people. He'll start college, switch majors a few times, then drop out with debt. Years from now he might think, "Dad might have had a point." Or, maybe he'll become a great engineer. Either way, the process of how they made the decision didn't go well.

I had a Chinese student with a similar problem years ago. Angela was 12. She was doing poorly in school. He parents needed her to learn English because they were moving to another country. They had tried other tutors, but without success. They heard about me and gave me free range to try and improve the situation.

It took me a couple of sessions, but I convinced Angela to tell me what she was actually interested in, which was dresses and fashion. So, that's what we studied. Angela started improving in English rapidly, because she was learning about what she wanted. The reason Angela had been hesitant to tell me what she wanted to study was because her parents had told her she can't focus on fashion, because she needed to learn English, Chinese, math, science, geography, history, etc.

I showed Angela that she needed to learn English to learn about the fashion industry. That she should work on her Chinese for potential manufacturing and fashion in China. She needed to learn math to understand production costs and measuring material. She needed to learn science to understand machines, materials, and dyes. She needed to learn geography to understand trade and supply routes, and where the fashion centers of the world are. She needed to understand history to know how fashion and fashion technology developed. Angela started showing up for class early. She started asking for homework. Her grades went up in all of her subjects. It was like cracking a code and flipping a switch for learning and engagement.

In one situation we have the student making a decision on their own. In the other situation we have a student and tutor working together. In one case the parents are frustrated, in the other case the parents are happy.

Let's walk both of them through a better process.

A high school student is interested in going to college for engineering. His parents, especially his father, don't think that's going to work very well and that he should go to a trade school or do an apprenticeship. A tutor uses my process to negotiate the perspective of the student and parents through a mutually agreed upon and beneficial process to a successful outcome.

The student and tutor write up a proposal project. Let's say that the student is adamant they want to go to college for engineering. The student and tutor think about what the benefits would be. The student has some reason they want to go. So in the paper he's going to include that reason, hopefully a meaningful reason like engineering makes the modern world of technology possible to support our civilization. To help justify his decision he's probably looked at salaries and wages. That information can be included too.

The tutor helps the student think through the objections his parents have. If he's not doing well in high school math, that's going to be a problem. How could he demonstrate that he'll be able to succeed? They look up and find that he can study on his own for an advanced placement math test. This would be comparable to his first year math classes in college.

The student writes his proposal. He'll study for the advanced placement math test. In a month he'll take the test demonstrating his college preparation, and then submit to the parents the completed project in writing and verbally. Since he's using it as a plan for college attendance, the tutor suggests he should probably make the proposal academic with a cover page, citations, and a reference page. The student and tutor then prepare for the student's verbal presentation to the parents on this report, and for a question and answer session at the end.

The student gives the proposal to the parents to review. The student then gives them the presentation and does the question and answer session with them, either on live video or recorded so that the tutor can also see how it went. Let's say the father brought up obvious concerns that since the son hasn't been successful with math up to this point, why would he moving forward? Is he going to keep putting in this level of effort in college? Is he actually committed to this? That wanting to make things to support civilization is good, tradespeople also are essential for that. Many trades make more than many engineers, especially if you don't do well in school. The father is concerned that the student hasn't even looked into the trades, and doesn't like the proposal. If the student waits too long then he'll miss the deadlines for the trade schools and apprenticeships for this year, meaning if the engineering path doesn't work he'll be delayed for a year with extra expenses in between.

The student comes back to the tutor with his rejected proposal. They think about how to reconcile these objections together. The tutor helps the student see that the timeframe is an issue for both college and the trade paths and suggests that the student keep his original plan, but add in something that would help with his father's concerns. The student adds to the new proposal that in addition to applying to college, he'll also apply to a trade school to meet the deadline, but with the understanding that his intention is not to attend, and he'll do a tour to see things in person.

The student writes this new proposal and gives it to his parents, then makes a new presentation and is better able to address their questions at the end. The parents approve the plan. Over the next month the student documents that the tutor showed him how to use practice advanced placement exams as programmed learning to prepare for the test, he registered for the test, he applied to the college, and he also toured and applied to the trade school.

The student and tutor write this up as a documented project paper and give it to the parents. The student gives them a presentation on the results including how his self-study of math went, how the test went, and what he thought about the tour of the trade school. Obviously the next steps will depend on the results. If the student liked studying math and did well on the test, it supports him going to engineering school. If he didn't really study math, did poorly on the test, and liked the tour of the trade school, maybe he'll open his mind to attending there.

The tutor is working with the student on understanding the parents' perspective, and with the parents' on understanding the student's perspective. The tutor is helping them to negotiate that understanding and perspective. The student is growing through the entire process. The student is pursuing what they're interested in, learning how to negotiate, learning academic writing, and learning rhetorical presentation skills, as well as learning math and about trade schools. It's individualized and personalized, classic and modern, custom education.

A completely different subject can follow the same process. Let's say some parents hire me because their daughter isn't doing well in English and they are moving to an English speaking country soon. They're frustrated. I talk with the student and she hates school. What she wants to do is learn about fashion, but her parents won't let her because they want her to do well at school.

The student and I write up a proposal that she can use fashion design as the learning hub, with all other subjects being connected to it as spokes. She'll learn about the history of the supply and trade routes dealing with textiles. She'll learn about the chemistry of fabric dyes. She'll learn about math for figuring out the amount of fabric needed to make a certain dress, and how much those materials are going to cost. She'll learn English and Chinese because she's going to give her parents the proposal and documented project in both languages, along with the presentation in both languages. The tutor helps her write this up in her proposal, and prepare for her presentation along with potential questions the parents will have. The parents agree.

The first thing the student wants to do is actually design a dress. Over a few weeks she makes drawings and writes descriptions. She calculates how much material she needs. She looks up the cost of obtaining the material and specifically where it would come from. All of this she documents in notes. She writes up the report with the tutor's help and prepares for the presentation to her parents. She includes that the next thing she would like to do is actually get the materials and make the dress. The parents are happy with her work in English and math, but hesitant about the construction project not being academic. They would like her learning about history and science.

The student and the tutor draw up a proposal planning for the next three projects, each separately documented and presented. In the first the student will do a historical study of either the silk road trade, or the start of the industrial revolution in England with textiles (suggestions by the tutor, but deferring to the choice of the student). In the second the student will get to do the dress construction she previously designed, with the parents ordering the supplies as had been included in the previous report. In the third the student will study the chemistry of dying fabrics. The parents approve and everyone moves forward with the projects.

You can see how the process necessitates that the student be able to take another perspective, to research, to write, to present, and to negotiate, and that the subject area itself can be anything. If the student has a specific area of focus, like fashion, then that can be the hub with other subject areas being the spokes that are connected to it. If the student doesn't have a specific focus area, then each project can stand alone, with a proposal phase to the parents initially, and then the presentation of the documentation at the end of the project.

The tutor is trying to give the student a perspective that the student would want to have if they knew about it. Something just outside of their current perspective and abilities, in their zone of proximal development. That requires a more knowing other, and the tutor is that in some ways, but the tutor doesn't necessarily have to know the history of the silk road to help a student research it. The tutor knows how to research, write, and present. The tutor and student can learn about the silk road together. The student is learning how to learn, how to decide, how to negotiate, research, write, and present, in addition to the subject that they're interested in.

In this process all three stakeholders play a pivotal role. All three grow, and the student grows the most.

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