Mistakes.
We Two Tutoring students reading this will already know the #1 rule of our classrooms: Make Mistakes. If you aren’t making mistakes, then you aren’t pushing yourself. You aren’t trying new, uncertain things. You aren’t learning.
Students must make mistakes.
Another, unspoken rule is this: We Are All Students. Learning doesn’t end at the classroom door. It doesn’t end on Friday afternoon. It doesn’t end at the diploma.
Life always has new challenges and we must learn in order to conquer them.
I began this blog and this website and promptly forgot those two lessons. As an English tutor, it is really hard to put out written work which might contain mistakes, and so I made the biggest mistake of all: I stopped. I created a new challenge in my professional life but I backed away from learning from it. I backed away from making any of those lesser-but-necessary mistakes. My brave students walk through the door day after day and hand over their written work or engage in conversation knowing that they are there to reveal their flaws. How vulnerable they make themselves, and I wasn’t good at doing that in return.
So with the new year, I’m renewing my commitment to writing about my tutoring here. I’ll be sharing resources, tips and advice in a way that may be flawed but will at least follow those most important rules of our classrooms.
I’ll make mistakes, and we can learn from them together.
