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Today was one of the days I tutor. This is my third year tutoring at the same site, which means people I met as almost-sophomores are now seniors.
I had a great time today catching up with my friend B., a brilliant math/computer guy whose math/computer brain is already pretty far beyond mine but who I occasionally tutor in writing, and with a new girl whose name I forget. She's taking IB history and we were chatting as background for her essay topic on (wow, how overbroad can you be?) "events in Europe that affected the New World."
B., the new nice girl and I had all read Guns, Germs and Steel. And they were taking advanced history for the IB program and were very smart nice people (also hungry, as it is Ramadan). We had a really lively discussion involving scrap paper and a globe about empires, the Spanish Reconquest, various flavors of Protestantism, the founding of the Church of England, how early Popes weren't always nice people, infectious diseases (influenza, smallpox, black death, syphilis), trade routes, ocean currents, the use of spices, and some other stuff. Then B and I stood on the street corner after the tutorial place closed and talked about video games, workplace situations, Spore, IRC, formal vs. informal social systems, and SF tv shows.
And as I got in my car feeling all buzzed and happy it occurred to me: this is part of what I love about tutoring. The reminder that teens are just as smart as adults on any given topic if they know about it. The only places where adults even have the option of trumping teens occur where making inferences from personal experience or cross-connecting disparate data sets is required. And even then, it's just the possibility that increased time has given you more data or you've built more connections.
I had a great time today catching up with my friend B., a brilliant math/computer guy whose math/computer brain is already pretty far beyond mine but who I occasionally tutor in writing, and with a new girl whose name I forget. She's taking IB history and we were chatting as background for her essay topic on (wow, how overbroad can you be?) "events in Europe that affected the New World."
B., the new nice girl and I had all read Guns, Germs and Steel. And they were taking advanced history for the IB program and were very smart nice people (also hungry, as it is Ramadan). We had a really lively discussion involving scrap paper and a globe about empires, the Spanish Reconquest, various flavors of Protestantism, the founding of the Church of England, how early Popes weren't always nice people, infectious diseases (influenza, smallpox, black death, syphilis), trade routes, ocean currents, the use of spices, and some other stuff. Then B and I stood on the street corner after the tutorial place closed and talked about video games, workplace situations, Spore, IRC, formal vs. informal social systems, and SF tv shows.
And as I got in my car feeling all buzzed and happy it occurred to me: this is part of what I love about tutoring. The reminder that teens are just as smart as adults on any given topic if they know about it. The only places where adults even have the option of trumping teens occur where making inferences from personal experience or cross-connecting disparate data sets is required. And even then, it's just the possibility that increased time has given you more data or you've built more connections.
