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Linking Young Minds Together
     Volume 2 Issue 84 | August 31 , 2008|


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Feature

Student to student

Rezwana Manjur

IN the past few years, there has been an increasing trend in college and university undergraduates teaching younger students. I personally have had some experience in this field in the recent past and I do support it. I've taught 12 year olds and currently am teaching a 10 year old studying here in Singapore. However, looking back on the days when I was a primary or secondary school student I cannot recall a time when I had a student as a teacher. However in my college days I had one, and here is how my story goes.

I was terrible in math. I could not imagine passing my additional mathematics subject for my O levels in my wildest dreams. Even now I have to wonder how I got through it. All credit goes to my former mathematics tutor. She was a fierce one. I remember days when I would travel for about an hour with my thick math book hoping that a bus would hit me because I could not remember how the sin x and cosin x graphs looked like. Her methods were indeed effective but along with the knowledge she imparted on me was a sense of dread and fear. As years went by, of course I got comfortable with the not so frequent yelling and I learnt that her main objective was that I listen carefully when she teaches. But the fear never left.

Now let's contrast this with my undergraduate-student-teacher that my parents hired when I was in junior college. He taught me chemistry. I thought math was bad, then, I was introduced to chemistry. This new tutor was about a year or two older then me. He was majoring in Electrical Engineering in NUS and was on a scholarship from Bihar. Our first lesson was a little shaky. I was a little shy expressing that 7 months into my A levels and I still could not do basic titration well enough. Gradually things got going but Chemistry remained a pain. Surprisingly enough, I found myself asking questions. I found a friend in the tutor. I was not afraid of being screamed at because I didn't know what an equilibrium was. I asked question and made mistakes. He too imparted knowledge. This time, along with that knowledge my tutor instilled confidence that I was not alone in Singapore failing to understand equations of chemistry. He made me believe that I could make it at the end of the day.

I suppose the point I am making is that we are always so caught up in what we perceive the best to be. In my years living in Singapore as a student, I have noticed that once one Bengali parent/student finds a good tutor that works well in educating them, everyone automatically flocks in that direction. Why should we do that? Why are we so bent on paying $55 an hour and travelling 3 hours for tuition when we have young educators willing to travel to our places and asking a much lesser charge. Why does age alone matter so much? Sure older teachers hold more experience but if we don't give the younger educators a chance how will they gain the experience? Maybe I am a little biased. My point simply is that let us open up our homes and hearts to these new age students. Give them an opportunity to prove themselves. Not only will the tutee be gaining knowledge, the young tutor himself will be gaining experience and learning to stand on his own feet. In these young individuals you will not only find an educator but also a friend. After all the age difference between your 12 year old child and a 23 yr old tutor is much lesser then the experienced teacher of 59. Surely generation gap stands for something!

(Rezwana studies English Literature at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.)

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