ANSWERING QUESTIONS YOUR STUDENTS DON'T ASK OUT LOUD
There’s a tricky reality that most tutors discover the hard way. It’s related to the silent questions that never meet your ears.
These questions can make or break a tutoring session!
They’re so important!
If you’re not tuned in and listening for them, they can easily be missed. The primary communication tool needed here is listening. It is KEY! Before I dive in, let me introduce you to Tannie (pronounced “tun-nee”)
When I was 11 years old, living overseas, a new teacher was announced! She was joining the staff of teachers already present on the crew of the hospital ship where I lived. We had about 50-60 students from 30 different nations enrolled which felt more like a small community of friends than a formal educational setting. I remember being so excited to meet her – and she did not disappoint! Towering over us all at 6’3” we quickly discovered her intuitive and often hilarious approach to teaching. It didn’t take long for her to become my favorite teacher.
I didn’t realize the full impact of her teaching until I became a teacher! Suddenly, I began to “hear” her in the words I said. I realized that many of my methods were in fact “her” methods! The approach Tannie used were deeply ingrained in me and ended up helping to heal my own learning hangups. Now her methods live on and are benefiting my students in significant ways.
Every day, every session, every student presents the opportunity for us to hear and answer an unspoken question. The deeper, profoundly personal questions that await our notice all revolve around a student’s dignity, identity and worthiness. And each student asks the same questions – centered on the same theme:
Do you see me?
Are you willing to work with me?
Am I worth loving even if I’m failing?
Will you judge me or my past and use it against me?
Can I trust you?
In my business, to help my team become adept in this, I often ask my them to tell me what unasked questions they have been able to answer in sessions. The conversations that follow are fascinating – and allow the tutors’ natural empathic “spidey senses” to show up. If we are listening well AND able to answer these questions with a solid and comforting YES! we have much higher success rates, much more engagement and follow through and higher rates of improvement.
The answers to those unspoken questions provide safety and ease, develop confidence and settle their hearts. This is true student building. The connection between feeling safe and feeling seen impacts performance and results - every single time.
Recently, after more than 10 years, I had the opportunity to have a zoom call with Tannie who lives in South Africa. I still consider her one of my most treasured and safe people for all things related to life and business. I hadn’t talked with her a while, and the technology of zoom was a bit overwhelming to her – but we connected! Her now 70+ year old self came on screen with the same beautiful expressive hands and familiar voice. We were both teary as we talked through much of life and work.
I asked her about this very idea of the underlying questions that my students are often asking. I was curious what she had observed all those years ago as a teacher, and without skipping a beat she laid out the very same questions I listed above – the exact same ones I ask my tutoring team!
And into a story she went about a previous student she’d had who’d been in trouble with the law. This dear girl was so worried about what Tannie would think of her – and potentially hold against her - that she couldn’t really settle into her academic work. Tannie decided to address the unasked question straight away! She confirmed that yes, she knew the story, but NO, it had nothing to do with the work in front of them. She was welcomed and encouraged, seen and valued. Right then. Forever.
It is from this place of kindness and showing that we care, giving value, showing honor, sharing empathy that we can address their academics. I wish each of you reading this could enjoy a cup of tea with my amazing Tannie and absorb some of her methods and approaches. She is a wealth of information – and laughs – and thousands of stories. Those stories are about the so many lives she has touched - including mine.
Answering the deeper, silent questions every day, in every session sets up the possibility of a breakthrough. And not just academically! We are enriching our students lives by connecting with them as we are entrusted to help.
I encourage you to listen for the unspoken questions your students are asking and do your best to answer them with warmth, thoughtfulness and sometimes humor.