A New First Day

Today was my first day tutoring at the local community college. Given that it was the second day of classes and we had a hurricane yesterday it wasn’t terribly crowded, which was actually kind of nice to be able to sit for awhile with the few students who came in and try and connect with them early on.

The first student I had was working on simple conversions (e.g. how many mm in 3 cm, how may mL in 2 quarts, etc.). He was struggling a bit, partly because he was rushing and partly too because he was getting lost “in the weeds” as they say. He was going into each one somewhat anxiously and getting bogged down in the numbers without first stepping back and figuring out what he was trying to accomplish in a broader sense.

We did a decent number of conversions and I kept trying to get him to write the steps out explicitly, cross out units as he goes, make sure he labels the units with each number, etc. It was funny because skipping steps, not writing out steps, etc. are all the same bad habits I used to do when I was that age. It is just laziness and it is only with the benefit of hindsight now it is clear how much easier chemistry can be when you write out all the details.

It was a good first day. It is so incredibly rewarding, even on a small scale to be able to help someone do something they couldn’t do a few moments before and see that “Eureka!” moment when it clicks in their brain and they own it for the first time.