What is a tutor?
Many people have a very solidified view of what a tutor is, and what a tutor does. You probably have the image of a studious looking individual sitting at a table next to a student. Both of their eyes intently focused on a specific math, physics, or chemistry problem. You likely assume that the student is struggling with the material, and that the tutor is that student’s last-ditch effort to eke out a passing grade. I mean while else would you need a tutor for a subject if you weren’t struggling? You also likely assume that, while the tutor knows the material better than the student, they probably do not have the same understanding as that student’s actual teacher. The tutor is just another student who took the class previously, or someone who just tutors occasionally and does not have a working knowledge of the student’s specific class.
As someone who is a tutor or considering becoming a tutor, you might have a broader more enlightened view of that student and tutor. In my experience as a private tutor though, this is how most students and parents view me when we first meet. If I am successful as tutor with those students, then hopefully by the end of our time together I have helped them also broaden their view on what a tutor is and what a tutor can be.
I believe a tutor is someone with expertise in an any subject area that is able to effectively share with anyone how to be successful in that same subject area. A tutor is not just someone you look to when you are in a time of great need, but is someone you look to find before you are in great need. A tutor is there to help one better understand and grasp a topic that they wish to be able to apply more effectively moving forward. I have found that when I am successful in this role as tutor, then my students are more excited to find a tutor for every subject, not just the ones that they are struggling with. A tutor does not create dependence on their skills for a student to be successful, rather they are someone who is looking to create ability and confidence within the student so they can move forward independently. I always tell people, I am looking to put myself out of a job, not create a long-term codependent relationship.
I do not believe that a tutor needs to live strictly within the confines of a traditional educational structure, or strictly in the hard sciences. Tutors do not need to be only for a class that you are taking a specific school with the purpose of obtaining a specific grade. A tutor is someone who is able to effectively share their knowledge with others. A tutor can be a neighbor helping a neighbor on a home construction project, a 5th grader helping a 1st grader with their reading, a teenager helping out an older family friend to learn to Zoom chat with their grandchildren or startup their own YouTube channel, a 75-year-old helping a middle school student to better understand the history that they are learning, a friend meeting with a friend at a coffee shop to practice conversational Spanish.
The more you castoff the traditional definitions of what a tutor is, and open your mind to what a tutor can be, the less that old picture of a tutor and a student makes sense, and many new different pictures of what tutoring can be and how you can become a tutor are able to take its place.