Memoir of a Private Tutor
(Personal essay - Just for English practice)
In Japan, this time of year is the season for entrance exams.
When this season comes around, I find myself recalling my days working as a part-time private tutor.
My first student was part of quite a relaxed family. The student had no motivation, the parents had no motivation, and (of course) I had no motivation either. It was an easy job, yet the pay was really decent, making it a pleasant way to earn money.
My primary tasks were: assigning short tests and grading them, reading through explanations in textbooks or reference books for the student, drawing slapdash diagrams, and discussing skill builds in Monster Hunter.
In the end, the student failed the entrance exam and didn't get into their first-choice school. However, neither the student, the parents, nor I felt particularly depressed about it.
Once, I happened to visit their house in a suit, because of my plan afterwards for which a suit was, most suitably, required. The student was surprisingly delighted, saying things like, "Teacher, you look really smart today!" I wondered if all people in suits look highly skilled to high school students, or if they were simply a promising young "suit enthusiast."
By the way, my "plan afterwards" was actually a drinking party for my university sports club. (In many Japanese university sports clubs, there is a rule that you must wear a suit to particular events.) This "teacher" in a suit preferred Peach-Oolong cocktails.
My second student, on the other hand, was much more diligent and hard-working than their lazy part-time tutor — me.
My primary tasks for this student were mainly teaching "how to study" and how to create a learning plan. This disciplined student could do self-study. To students like them, I thought it was a waste of time to read textbooks or reference books aloud. Therefore, I told them to read the materials themselves first, and if there was anything they could not understand, not to hesitate to ask me, though I might not have been able to perfectly answer their questions due to my lack of knowledge.
Thus, I gave advice such as which reference books were best for self-study, the importance of setting short-, medium-, and long-term goals, and how to schedule reviews based on the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve. To be honest, I was not sure if my methods were perfect; however, in my opinion, one shouldn't expect professional-level responsibility from a university student working a part-time job!
Thanks in part to — No, that is incorrect. All thanks to the student’s steady and respectable efforts, their grades improved, and they successfully passed their university entrance exams. It was even a higher-level school than they initially wanted to attend.
Ironically, however, my hourly wage for this job was lower than at the first, unmotivated household.
