I've heard students say things like "I'm not good at maths" or "I don't have a maths brain".
Everyone has a maths brain. It's just about finding it. Or in some cases, finding it again after somehow losing it.
Finding it means listening, then tapping into and developing a student's innate curiosity about their world, and finally transforming that energy into problem-solving skills.
Of course that's the whole point of school, but many schools struggle just to make ends meet. The result is that students don't get shown their own true potential, and end up feeling demotivated.
This is where tutoring comes in.
Years of tutoring and tech work has taught me the two have something in common: helping a struggling student or co-worker with a hard topic is about much more than knowing your subject matter well. When someone is struggling, the pressure they feel to "just get it" can make matters even worse - so the first thing they need is patience and empathy. Maths is hard for everyone. It's just that some students get the right kind of help at the right time - while others simply don't. Without patience and empathy from someone who knows first-hand how difficult maths can feel, it puts a lot of people off. And when people are feeling put off they can't learn.
After patience and empathy comes bespoke teaching strategies.
Maths teachers are trained teaching strategists. They're brilliant at it, but they may have 30+ students absorbing the same piece of information in 30+ different ways. Successfully helping all of them at once is a herculean task. Again, many students get left behind. Or they are never challenged enough to see what they're really capable of. Or they suddenly find themselves slipping when things were going well before.
Here is my approach is to filling that gap:
A tutor's main job is to zero in on where the problem with understanding actually is - by taking the time to find out where the student actually is. This can lead to some surprising results, so I never make any assumptions about the student's overall 'strength' and I never judge. We know what we know. Recognising that you don't know something is the first step on the way toward understanding.
Build the ability to problem-solve rather than just memorise maths 'recipes'. Recognising which recipe to follow and all its steps is important, but it's not everything. Real problem-solving is where you have to think creatively in an unexpected situation. This is the kind of thinking that builds confidence, because students get to see themselves thinking on their own feet. Deepening our understanding is how we move toward that place - for example, by learning about why this or that technique works, rather than just seeing that it gets you to the right answer in a situation you recognise.
A key lesson from the tech world: construct the simplest possible example of a problem and make sure you fully understand that before adding complexity to it. This turns out to be a great way to explore mathematics, too.