A Nameless Blog

It’s been about two years since I started teaching people how to take standardized tests.  It was a switch that was financially inadvisable, but otherwise fantastic.  I work almost every day, but I get to make my own schedule.  As I look back, I’ve found that I’ve gained a lot more than sleep and sanity.  I’ve learned a lot with this job.  Granted, not a lot of it is fascinating or applicable to real life, but some of it is.  At the risk of sounding autobiographical, I’ll tell you some of the more useful pieces of knowledge I’ve learned over the last two years.

No matter how good a student may be at grammar, nobody can adequately explain the difference between “who” and “whom”.  Most take a wild stab at it, then I’m forced to say that it’s the same difference between “he” and “him”.  Even then, I have to take it that final step and explain that one’s a subject and the other’s an object.  Every time.  “You see, he stabbed him in the eye.  Who stabbed whom in the eye?  He did the stabbing.  Him got stabbed.  Now, reflexive pronouns: the tutor stabbed himself in the eye…”

Rich people love Halloween.  Seriously.  I go to a lot of fancypants houses in Scottsdale, Phoenix, and Chandler (mostly Scottsdale).  It seems like every single one of them has gone overboard with decorations.  Bloody skulls, Frankenstein monsters, grim reapers, ghosts, spiderwebs, and creepy hags adorn them all.  Idle rich, my ass — these people work tirelessly to make their homes into shrines for death.  And most of these people live in gated communities that have very little auto traffic and zero pedestrians.  Maybe they’re just trying to impress the tutor: “That’s a nice hanging corpse out front, sir.  The eyeball popping out of socket was a nice touch.”

The vast majority of people seem to like me, except those who totally hate me.  My students generally act like I’m helping them and not making them feel bad about their less-than-ideal test scores.  I’m pretty good at adjusting my tone, patience, and attitude accordingly.  About every six months, though, one student comes around who absolutely hates me.  Maybe they think I’m arrogant, or maybe they don’t like my plaid shirts; I don’t know.  It doesn’t bother me much; I still have a pretty high approval rating.  It just amuses me that the people have decided that if you’re gonna hate Darrell, you might as well go big.

Most people aren’t very good writers.  You know it’s true already, but it bears repeating: it’s hard for most people to put things concisely.  And to spell things correctly.  Probably the hardest part of my job is refraining from saying, “Come on, just fucking write it!  Organize your thoughts and make them make sense.  Geez…”

It takes half an hour to get anywhere in the Valley.  I live in Tempe.  I’ve had students and classes in north Phoenix, central Phoenix, Chandler, super-southeast Mesa, Ahwatukee, Paradise Valley, and north Scottsdale all the way to Fountain Hills.  Regardless of traffic or distance from freeways, it takes me almost exactly one half-hour to get to each of those places.  Only the class in Goodyear and the student in Carefree took longer.

A student will forget at least half of what I say.  No matter the student or the test type, I have to repeat myself a lot.  Even the most studious kids who do all their homework and have noticeable score improvements will completely space on something that I thought I emphasized pretty well the week before.  I’m not horribly frustrated by it, but I do wish people would retain info a little better.

High-school kids lose patience with their parents a little too easily.  Look, I understand — your mom can be a little bit much every now and again.  You’re tired of her scheduling your every moment and you’re right to tell her to relax about some of the details.  But there’s no need to get petulant.  It only reminds me that you are, indeed, only sixteen.

The older the children, the neater the house.  Dealing with rich folks, I would say that the houses are much nicer and cleaner than most.  However, there is a slight difference in neatness depending on the ages of the kids.  If my student has younger siblings, there will probably be crap lying around.  Not a lot, mind you, but the occasional backpack or pile of shoes will make an appearance.  Of course, the one exception to this rule is among the Indian families, whose houses are always impeccable.

Clinton references go nowhere with high-schoolers.  During an SAT vocab game, I quizzed a class on the word “censure”.  Nobody knew it, so I said, “remember when Clinton was impeached?”  Blank stares.  I even had to inform some that they were alive when this happened.  Ugh.  I am not looking forward to having explain George W. Bush.  “He was the president, kind of a doofus, couldn’t pronounce ‘nuclear’… come on, you don’t remember?”

High-schoolers are great, but only one at a time.  Get more than one in a room and suddenly the delightful, agreeable young’ns are the most irritating people on the planet.  I guess it’s true — birds of a feather flock together… and annoy the piss out of anyone of a different feather.

The most frustrated students are the ones who have problems with geometry.  Every student has at least a couple speedbumps.  I don’t know why, but if one of those speedbumps happens to involve finding the area of a shaded region, the student will get more frustrated than normal.  He’ll clam up, stare at the figure blankly, misremember formulas (particularly area/circumference of a circle).  It makes no sense to me, since it’s the only type of math that gives you pictures to look at.  “Do you see any smaller shapes in here, like a triangle… with two equal sides… and thus two equal angles… come on now, stay with me.  The picture won’t hurt you.”

Grad students care more, since they’re the ones paying for it.  My last observation is also my most obvious.  Getting an ACT or SAT student to pay attention in class is the most frustrating part of my job.  Thankfully, I don’t have to worry about that for GRE or GMAT classes.  It’s funny how a little maturity and a lot of financial investment will alter a person’s behavior.

Hmm… that wasn’t as exciting as I had hoped.  I guess that’s why I don’t write about myself.  Next time, I’ll write a story.  About a klutzy drunk.  Or maybe not!  Now, I must bid you adieu.  Ted’s Hot Dogs is calling my name, so I’d better get over there before they get cited for causing a disturbance.

-Darrell

This entry was posted on Monday, October 19th, 2009 at 2:17 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.