Ask Micki: What to do about a lazy tutee?

This question was sent in by an anonymous tutor who is having problems motivating his tutee to learn.

Question: Hi, Micki. I have been tutoring for about 3 years now (mostly high school math), and have had nothing but great experiences. That is, until 2 weeks ago.

Two weeks ago I encountered, perhaps, one of the laziest tutees on earth! I started tutoring a 16 year old boy in basic statistics, and he really needs the help. His parents have already expressed their concern, and have given me the task of raising his grade from a D- to an A...in the next 4 weeks...yeah...Since it is a summer school course, and time was of the essence, we scheduled appointments for two days each week.

First, I talked to his parents and let them know, realistically, what could be done with his grade in only 4 weeks of tutoring. They understood, and were still happy for the tutoring help - they really just want him to pass the course with a decent grade. No problem, there!

But as soon as my tutee and I had our first tutoring session together, I knew it would be challenging (to say the least). He frequently gets up to "grab a sports drink," zones out while I'm talking, switches on the television, and even had the nerve to answer a phone call from his friend right in the middle of our tutoring session.

He is just not interested in learning or tutoring. What do I do with him? He's driving me crazy!
(from Anonymous)

Answer: Hi, Anonymous! You have a great question for me, and one that-I'm sure-has been asked by many frustrated tutors over the years. In fact, I remember asking myself this question a decade ago when I tutored a challenging tutee.

First of all, you did the right thing by talking to your tutee's parents about the situation, and I'm pretty sure that they know that the problem with their son's grades lies in his lazy attitude towards schoolwork.

As for your tutee: it sounds like it is important to start over with him. Lay out the tutoring rules again, and get him into a more learning friendly environment.

Try the following tips - I am sure they will help your tutoring sessions immensely.

1. Have a quick talk with your tutee about how important it is to minimize distractions so that he can get the most out of each tutoring session. Try to avoid coming across as a disciplinarian. Just be really upfront about the fact that he needs to learn this stuff to pass the class. If he knows how important the tutoring is, he may perform better.

2. Get rid of the distractions. I once had a tutee that was so distracted by the phone ringing, that it was almost as if he couldn't help himself from jumping up and answering it at least 10 times every time I tutored him.

So, we removed our tutoring session from the distraction. He and I began tutoring at the local library and, on occasion, the high school classroom. His concentration, and grades, skyrocketed! (usually by the time you have completed this step, you have a brand new, studious tutee on your hands)

3. Offer small tutoring session rewards. Maybe if the two of you get through a set number of math problems, or concepts, you can offer up a small gift card at the end of the month. This also works if you leave him with extra problems to try in between your sessions - if he finishes your worksheet, he gets some sort of "prize"!

4. Talk to the parents. Let them know that their son is having difficulty concentrating during the tutoring, and that it could impact his grades. They most likely have a good idea of what would motivate, and distract, their son, and may be able to offer you some great insight and suggestions for your future tutoring sessions. At the very least, this makes them aware of the problem and lets them know that it is not the tutor's fault that the tutee isn't performing.

5. Speak with the teacher. Is he not paying attention in class because he is goofing off, or is he genuinely having difficulty with the material. Let the teacher know that you are his tutor, and that you are concerned with his progress. It may even be necessary for him to be in lower level class at this point in time.

Whatever happens, good luck and happy tutoring!

Change is in the air for the ITA blog!

Just a quick entry to let you all know that the ITA blog is undergoing some exciting changes.

After receiving a lot of email requests, and doing quite a few interviews, we have decided to entrust most of the blog postings to 2 of our resident ITA experts.

Of course, there will still be postings by the staff here at ITA, but a lot of our posts will be from these two fantastic contributors:

So who are they?

- Micki Henson has been a tutor for 15 years and tutors a wide variety of subjects and age groups, from adult ESL to grade school mathematics. Micki will be handling our new ITA Blog feature known as, "Ask Micki," an advice column that tackle all of the questions that come to us every week. She can be reached at MHenson@itatutor.org.

- Charlie Ryan has been tutoring for nearly 10 years now and specializes in mathematics, computers, and engineering. Charlie will be the blog contributor who discusses tutoring as a business, session tips and techniques, and tutoring issues in general. He can be reached at CRyan@itatutor.org.

We are very excited about these recent changes and hope that you will be, too!

And if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email us or ask away on Twitter.

Guest Post: Problems with Parents

This is a great guest post sent to us by a tutor who wishes to remain anonymous. It is all about dealing with the difficult parents of a tutee.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi readers,

I've decided to submit this post anonymously for obvious reasons (I don't want to get involved in the parents reading this, etc.). It is a post that deals with the reality of tutoring high school mathematics, and the pitfalls that come with a teens difficult parents.

My tale starts out like any normal tutoring session. I showed up at my tutee's home, a nice suburban brick house, on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

I rang the bell and a tired looking 16 year old girl, I'll call her June (name obviously changed), answered the door. After making my way inside, we sat down and went through the usual introductions. I found out that she played volleyball, which she enjoyed, and that she was very worried about her algebra grade.

Unfortunately, during this 10 minute conversation, June's parents interrupted about 5 times. Not to introduce themselves, or offer some insight into their daughter's difficulties with her math class, but to remind her to "study fast - you have practice in 2 hours."

I was shocked and knew that there was a definite problem.

Throughout our hour long session, we were interrupted repeatedly, at least a dozen times, by June's parents.

June's mom stopped the session twice to ask about volleyball equipment, her dad interrupted us to talk about the upcoming game in 3 weeks, and there were other interruptions that ranged from carpool questions to discussions about "gearing up for the scouts that might be at the game next month."

By the end of the tutoring session June looked as frustrated as I felt and it was clear that nothing had been accomplished during the session.

I knew that we had 9 more tutoring sessions planned, but I also knew that they would be useless if the tutoring session conditions stayed the same. So I started thinking about what to do next.

Should I talk to the parents and risk confrontation? Should I suggest we meet elsewhere? I didn't want to create any tension or uneasiness, I just wanted to give June a chance to learn.

So, after a few minutes of though, I mustered up the courage to talk to her mom and dad. I let them know that June definitely needed help with her algebra, but that she was a bright young woman who seemed very capable of quickly learning the concepts.

I also asked if it would be all right to move our future tutoring sessions to the local library so that we would have access to all of the math books we could possibly need and a quiet place to study.

To my relief, June's parents said that library tutoring sessions would be fine with them, provided that they could be scheduled around practice and games. I was thrilled - I knew that we would have a much better chance of math class success if June was given an opportunity to concentrate.

So, for the next session June and I met after school at her local public library. The session went great, June picked up all of the concepts we went over, and by the end of the semester she had improved by an entire letter grade!

Now that she will be entering her Junior year of high school, we have planned regular tutoring sessions at the library. June is still a star volleyball player, but now she is a star math student as well!