You will agree with me when I affirm that the task of being a tutor is one of the most demanding in the field of teaching. And it is because many of us have not been prepared for that purpose. Course after course and tutoring after tutoring we have been acquiring skills that have turned the job of being a tutor into a challenge.
Looking back, I realize that there have been very tough tutorials of JC Economics tuition in which I have learned a lot, like I have enjoyed tutorials that have given me enormous satisfactions and I venture to say too, have made me better and better teacher person.
That is why this article aims to highlight five qualities that are essential to practice as a tutor from my point of view:
Five Qualities that every tutor should have
Be empathetic.
Getting empathized with students is not an easy task. Remember that empathy we understand the quality that people have to put themselves in the skin of another, the ability to listen to the other, the virtue of sharing their achievements, fears, hopes … An empathic teacher will be able to cohere a group, to be fair and objective and, most importantly, to earn the respect and admiration of their tutors.
Be resilient
Another essential quality that I would highlight from a good tutor would be resilience. We live in a society where it is increasingly difficult to separate the academic from the familiar. In our tutorials frankly difficult cases occur and it is in overcoming this difficulty where resilience intervenes. The resilient tutor is the one who is able to get the best out of each of his or her tutors even more when the problems in their environment are very unfavorable.
A few years ago I had the bitter experience of losing a student of my tutoring in a motorcycle accident. From that event I learned a lot, above all, I learned from the mistakes and how we should face this type of situations to the limit. Faced with this type of misfortune, a resilient teacher will have an advantage when it comes to overcoming the emotional pain of his group.
Be informed
Another aspect that I consider essential in the work of every good tutor is the information that this handles on the tutoring. The more information we have from our tutors, the easier it will be to understand them, to accompany them in their maturational and learning process and to help them in times of adversity. It is important that the tutor masters the academic and personal record, has a fluent contact with his family and with the student, who collects information from the rest of the teachers and has up-to-date all the data that he / she considers pertinent.
Being versatile.
Those of us who are tutors share sessions of our own subject with sessions of tutoring. Sometimes it is difficult to separate both disciplines since conflicts that arise throughout the course are frequent. I think our tutors usually see us more as their tutors, more than just another teacher. That is why we must be alert to their needs and know how to prioritize when it is appropriate to be a tutor and when it is convenient to be a professor. Many teachers complain that their group is more backward than others because in many of their classes they always “miss” some time with tutoring issues. For me more than waste of time, I would prefer to talk about “time investment”. Many times that “investment of time” as I like to call it, positively affects the environment and climate of the group.
Act with immediacy
Another quality that I consider essential in a tutor is the immediacy to solve an individual or group conflict. You have to know how to see when a conflict needs to be mediated or sanctioned. The success or resolution of this conflict depends to a large extent on the speed of the action. An ill-resolved conflict will always end up reappearing and its resolution will become increasingly difficult.