Tutoring & Mindset

Probably one of the largest changes I have noticed, is the growth of the tutoring industry. The emphasis and goals have changed and make me wonder about the actual benefits that are being passed onto the students. It is a particularly big industry here in Hong Kong where you see the faces of tutors adorning the public buses that ply the streets. The industry has "rock star status" for those on top of the game with a commensurate pay scale accompanying the status. The marketing pushes hard at all parents regardless of the school system or examination their child will encounter. It has almost become a situation that your child is 'disadvantaged' if they do not attend tutoring! So obviously the marketing works.

I recall when I first began teaching that tutoring seemed confined to the students who required remediation in a particular section of the course. Mainly done by teachers of the course, the meeting with students at lunch, before and after school was part and parcel of the job. Spending time giving a variety of scenarios and solutions to help illustrate the concept or theory meant that a growth mindset was established. You tried to help the student to gain the knowledge and skills that would allow them to solve or attempt to solve both familiar and unfamiliar situations that applied to a certain theory or principle. Remediation was seen as part of the education of the student and provided help for those who could not form the links between a theory and its application. 

Times changed and parental expectations and priorities changed with it. Tutorials were seen as extensions and fast tracks towards a goal. The fixed mindset of the goal oriented became more pronounced. Tutorials became group tasks that involved examining past problems. Success equated to goal achieved. Learning however is not really a consideration - rote learning or learning set answers knowing where to plug them in - the skills learnt and nurtured. This system relies on the status quo being present in terms of examiners and their requirements. Once the examiner begins to focus on the application & understanding side of learning, then things start to come unravelled. The shift in emphasis is in response to exams and dare I say it, demand from the students and their parents. The exams from the IB (at least in my teaching area) seem to now be heading towards application through their nature of science initiative, and I now wonder how that will affect the students and their tutors who for so long have been going down the fixed mindset route. With the shift towards growth mindset in terms of questions, it brings into question the worth or gain in using this practice. 

I think the use of time is also a point need considering. Students back then had time to do other things, with the idea of free or leisure time a given. There was always study time but choice or 'my time' was also evident. I wonder if we can say that today? The students I encounter these days have schedules that I find crammed with appointments and externally run lessons. The mental well-being of students is changing and this will most certainly be a contributing factor, of that there can be no doubt. I have mentioned the rise in anxiety in previous blogs and this does little to lessen it, but it also does little to provide self-autonomy skills. Many of these students will soon be in colleges and universities in places removed from the planning influences of home, and ill prepared for the prospect of leisure time and independence that lies ahead. 

Depression, does it stay?

This is becoming an important question particularly with the increase in reported occurrence in teens. The effects of depression are debilitating to many aspects of the child's future, but in many ways it seems that we are not doing enough to assist with the problem. I am in some ways amazed that this epidemic is largely unreported and action seems slow at best. The problem in some cases seems to be the stigma that is associated by many sections of society with any form of mental disease, most of which seems to be based on misunderstandings of the root causes and behaviour of depression. Is it simply that we don't really understand them so we ignore and hope it self heals?

I was reading a short article (linked) about childhood depression and it struck me how little we really know and understand. One of the main findings of the article was that childhood trauma impacted on actual brain development, a worrying notion to say the least. In past blogs I have highlighted the fact that emotional growth and control continues as the brain develops well into the early twenties before any of us become fully socially responsible. This has an effect on how we both perceive and react to changes, challenges and traumas in our youth. We are not really prepared to deal with these and as we are unsure how to verbalise effectively, we internalise. Emotions are learnt responses to outside stimuli and this makes responses to them all the more important. So if we leave them 'festering inside' as is the habit of preteens and teens, then the chances of moving on and recovery are limited. We have all seen that at this age, children are often caught up in a sense of self - working out their place in things. This unfortunately leads to looking inward and traumatic effects are going to be exaggerated in the process. The study suggests there is also a link between this and addiction as the child searches for ways to overcome the negative feelings that come with the trauma and its effects. 

As a teacher I see the changes in behaviour that signify a significant change in the child. I know that many parents also see this and respond with an appropriate reaction of giving time. A case comes to mind where a student of mine was in the midst of a family change involving divorce. Both parents were placing strain on the bonds and effectively asking the child to choose, and this seems to be a growing problem. The changes in her behaviour were very apparent and we spent several days before she started to open up about how it was affecting her. Too often the child is lost in the proceedings and process and has a feeling that they are the root cause of the marriage breakdown. Now that is a huge burden to saddle anyone with, little own a child/teen who is only beginning to grasp the intricacies of emotions and how to manage them. Luckily, she had a great support group of friends to help with the changes and was able to move on. But I wonder how many of children and teens that go through traumas like family breakdown, severe injury & disease, death of a loved one or other experience 'come out the other end' without self-doubt and some form of depression. We seem to forget that they are yet to fully develop the skills and strategies needed to move forward, and simply expect them to grow out of it. But this is difficult if you are not shown or given coping strategies. Far too often we forget this and simply offer platitudes, forgetting that these problems are seen differently by our children. 

Parenting walks a fine line between doing all and allowing our children to grow. The key is as always, effective communication. The ability to help 'train or educate' our children of releasing tension, pressures and concerns through effective communication is surely one of the major parental goals. I know that for some the answer is simple, adopt the helicopter and protection detail and try to keep these trials from reaching our children. But, life is a journey full of trials and although we can shield, the best option is to provide strategies and resilience techniques. Having some strategies that do not involve self harm is essential if our children are going to be able to safely negotiate this period of their life. If we leave it to them, the problem may well remain and come back again to "haunt" them. Ignoring the signs does little to help and makes it more likely that the condition will stay with them into adulthood.