This is a series of articles about different children and how they react to private tuition. Slightly tongue in cheek, but based on years of experience with lots of students. All likeness to students past and present is probably coincidental...
Davey
Davey is a boy who tries his best and doesn't seem to get anywhere. To his family, he is a star and they don't want him to change at all. At school, he achieves little and progress is painfully slow.
His personality is calm and cheerful. He doesn't worry about things and if you asked him how school was going, he'd tell you about the football club or what he did with his friends today. If you pinned him down and asked him about his work, he'd probably shrug and say it was the same as ever.
Davey's family know he tries his best because they've watched him sit, hunched over his homework, tongue stuck out while he stares at the page. They talk him through it and do their best to help him, while he struggles with the kind of work the rest of the class seem to sail through.
No matter what lies behind Davey's problems - being left behind at a crucial point in his school past, or a special educational need or even a simple issue like his eyesight - Davey tries and still nothing happens.
Davey is almost the perfect student for private tuition. All this determination and hard work that seems to have got him nowhere so far can now be ploughed into one-to-one lessons. Davey can ask questions, he can explain what he doesn't understand. His tutor can watch how he does things and see where the problems lie and know that Davey will listen to the solution.
Daveys are wonderful people. They are the ones at the back of the class who do their best and never give in. Every success, however small, is a giant step for them. Whatever you teach them, once they have it, they never let it go.
After their school years, the Daveys are the ones who flourish in jobs which need a reliable, steady, genuine and willing employee. Davey will listen to advice and do his best. He will be the best apprentice in the group, the one valued for doing as he's told and asking when he doesn't know something.
Davey will be the one who could own his own business someday or be successful in his chosen job. The boy at the back of the class, the one ignored because he never seemed to catch on to the work, is also the one who takes every step and makes it count.
He will be there, every morning and every evening, doing things the right way, to the best of his ability. And he will never take success for granted.
Abigail
On the other hand, we have Abigail. This little girl has only just realised that school isn't a walk in the park. She is starting to fall behind the other students but when her parents try helping her, a volcano erupts.
You see, Abigail has discovered that you have to work harder as you get older. She doesn't work at home, so why should she work at school?
If she doesn't want to do something at home, she kicks up a fuss, or cries, or both and the thing is left undone. At school, she has to behave so instead of tears and tantrums, she does nothing.
Now, at the end of term, her parents find out she's not progressing. This means the unwelcome arrival of a tutor, there to help Abigail do the work she has avoided for months. This does not go down well.
The Abigails of the world are very, very good at getting what they want. If you are lucky, they do this by being charming, making sure they get their own way by being the nicest little girl
ever. The other side of the coin are the Abigails who also get everything they want by being a beast.
The beast within isn't always obvious. It lurks beneath the surface, ready to appear when needed. If Abigal doesn't wanna, the lip quivers, the tears start, the head goes down and the eyes lift, clinically assessing the effect with lizard-like cool.
If the hated event is still happening, the stakes are raised and Abigail has a full-blown tantrum, designed to fluster and upset the opponent into giving in and either going away or comforting the crying child.
This works very well. In fact, most Abigails only need to redden their face and quiver their lip to get the job done. So, imagine the shock when tuition starts and an unknown adult, faced with this performance, carries on with the lesson!
The horror is such that Abigail thinks the tutor is unaware of her distress and explains she is
crying, haven't you noticed? She's
upset, don't you care? She feels
sick, she's going to
be sick (cue well-polished retching noises, accompanied by a Victorian melodrama).
All of this goes on and still the dreadful tutor waits, ignores, corrects, explains and the work re-starts. At this point, Abigail begins to hate.
Abigails very rarely benefit from tuition. They could, if they wanted to. Being this inventive means Abigails are quite clever, it's just that they use their brains for evil instead of good. Their work could be learned and completed in half the time it might take Davey. But it won't be done.
Abigails have developed a whole lifestyle based around doing what they like and being forced to sit down and learn for an hour a week isn't going to change that. They will make the hour as uncomfortable and aggravating as possible, confident that this method works with everything else in life.
Their work will improve, slowly, unless there are breaks in the lessons. Any breaks, even for just a week, will be followed by the kind of regression only seen after the long Summer holidays. More than a week between lessons and it can be like the tutor was never there.
In later years, school or work, Abigail will still expect people to do everything for her or suffer the consequences. She might come from a family of high-flyers, or an ordinary, hard-working family - either way, Abigail will not follow their example.
The only time this doesn't apply is if the Abigail can find something she really wants to do. This is the magic formula: if she falls in love with a way of life or an idea, then she'll use her determination and inventiveness to achieve that, rather than to avoid everything else.
Davey and Abigail
In the great scheme of things, Abigail should be the winner. She has more potential academically than Davey and less reason to fail. She's better at problem-solving and very good at getting out of trouble.
Davey, on the other hand, doesn't even try to get out of trouble. If he makes a mess, he cleans it up. If he causes a problem, he admits it and puts it right. If he can't work something out, he struggles until he understands it.
The light on behind the blinds at the end of the day is Davey. He's working his way through his latest project, his tongue stuck out like when he was little, finding the solution that makes sense for him so he can go home and know it was a job well done.
At Abigail's house, she's listening to her mother working in the kitchen and wishing she would hurry up and stop banging about because the noise is spoiling the videos on Abigail's new phone.
Somewhere along the line, they both have the potential to succeed but it is up to them whether or not they take it. Even as children, choices are made and paths followed.
Amanda J Harrington
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