Tutoring. Seems tedious, right? Having to learn (in some cases re-learn) material well enough to teach it, make the students pay attention, and explain the material live without making mistakes. Well- it turns out that all of these things are actually not that complicated and there are some great benefits of being a tutor.
Sure, getting used to the whole process might take some time- but in reality there are indeed many benefits for those that have the skills of a tutor.
Benefits of Being a Tutor
Tutoring can Help You Learn Things on a Deeper Level
Teaching is a great way to learn and why tutors are important! You have to understand what you learn in order to explain the ‘why?’ behind it. For example, learning that 2 + 2 = 4 is as easy as memorization - or is it?
This is where tutoring is important. When you are a tutor you get to explain why 2 + 2 = 4. You could use some examples such as “You had 2 apples in row and then you placed 2 more next to them. Count how many you have now.” This not only explains how you got there, it helps create a strategy for other problems, like 3 + 1 = 4. (“You had 3 apples and you placed 1 more next to it. Count how many you have now.”)
Now you know why and how addition works- so you can teach it! Of course this isn’t the most practical way to do this in the real world and not one of the reasons why you want to be a tutor. However, the memorization of these fast facts should come later because knowing how addition works could help with more advanced addition. This can be applied to many other things (How does the quadratic formula work? How does a limit work?).
Tutoring Gives You Leadership Qualities
Just a few things leaders are known to do are: be able to help others that need it, be able to communicate well, and be able to be creative. Being a tutor helps you accomplish those and more. But for our purposes we will focus on these few.
Helping others that need it. Being a tutor gives you skills that you need in order to help people. After all, that is what a tutor is there for. Their job is to help those struggling in various areas.
Communication skills. Communication is an important part of tutoring because you want to effectively and concisely explain how to do a particular thing. The more you tutor, the more you can hone this skill. This can benefit you in real life because communication skills are important in things like interviews, meetings, and school.
Creativity. Answering questions is also a huge part of being a tutor. Often, students will ask you a question about something that you didn’t think you would have to answer. This ‘off-guard question’ is good for helping with creativity. Most likely- you would have to improvise and create an example.
Tutoring Allows You to Feel Happier
This is especially true if you are a volunteer tutor. According to the Journal of Happiness Studies people who volunteer feel happier than those who don’t. And who wouldn’t want to feel happier? Being a volunteer tutor allows you to help people become more intelligent and the price your students pay for your services is increasing your happiness. In my opinion- happiness is better than any amount of money. Especially in today’s day and age as being sufficiently happy becomes more and more scarce with each passing generation.
Volunteer Tutoring Allows You to Get Volunteer Hours
Have you ever looked at volunteer hours you need to complete for a high school award? Well volunteer tutoring allows you to fill in those time slots and help you discover why tutors are important.
In closing, we would like to invite you to become a volunteer tutor through schoolhouse.world. Schoolhouse.world is a non-profit organization working to help students and aspiring tutors. Joining this community could create a positive effect on the world as a whole. It’s like a domino effect - a person becoming a tutor could help other students become tutors by teaching them. Then, those students could affect even more people. I hope you choose to join us!
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