Ludo: So what kind of student do you think having a tutor made you at school? Did it change the way you approached study at school?
Julia:
To be honest, I don’t know. I think that when you’re in school, you learn to get on with it. It’s quite sink or swim – even the most supportive of schools is stretched. I’m a deputy teacher in a primary school and we do our absolute best and it’s extremely hard work to cater to all the children all the time. It changed me as a student. I wonder if I found an extra confidence. I wonder if I found an extra little enthusiasm and maybe that quiet space helps you to feel your own learning more than you can do in a classroom.
Ludo: So do you think this, maybe today, is the role of the tutor then is to just flick a switch in the child’s mind that isn’t able to be flicked during school hours?
Julia:
I think that’s really interesting, that flicking a switch. I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently. Tutors build confidence, don’t they? That’s what they really do.
And it’s so hard to understand how, in a session once a week, it’s possible to make such a difference. But it definitely is. And when you say, “flick a switch”, that’s perfect because, once you light up a child, they’re alight. They’re switched on. So, you could say it’s more like a dimmer, not sure, but definitely people are adjusted for learning.
People are designed to learn and as the world keeps changing, the best thing that we can do is learn to learn, continue to learn, teach our kids to always be willing to learn.