I love my job at Study Hut Tutoring… and this Portuguese Water Dog!
Being a Manhattan Beach tutor at Study Hut Tutoring has been an incredibly rewarding experience. I’ve always been drawn to the idea of working in education because of my own educational experience, which I believe was excellent, and made me want to be able to give as many Manhattan Beach students as possible the help that they need to have an equally excellent educational experience. Each time a student comes and sits with their favorite Manhattan Beach tutor, me, I am reminded of the joy I get when I foster that eureka moment in my student. It is so satisfying to see the light-bulb go on as a result of my instruction!
One of my favorite topics as a Manhattan Beach tutor at Study Hut Tutoring is lower level math because I feel that many students often get pushed away from math early on because they see very few practical applications for what they are learning. In order to combat this I do my best to explain to my students from Manhattan Beach Middle School (MBMS) and the other Manhattan Beach schools how what they are learning now will eventually be applied to their future studies. I believe that I am a unique pre-algebra and algebra 1 tutor because I have been exposed to higher level math (such as multivariable calculus and linear algebra) so I am able to explain what by Manhattan Beach students are studying in a great deal of depth and give them an idea of how what they are learning now will be applied later.
In addition to tutoring math, I also love to tutor history. I absolutely love history and love being able to see students become engaged in what they are learning. As a Manhattan Beach tutor, specifically for history, I do my best to place as much emphasis as possible on the story rather than the tedious task of memorizing dates and facts. The stories really are compelling. Once students connect to the emotion of where we are, memorizing is so much easier. I find that those come much easier when intertwined into an engaging story. Being able to spark an interest in a Mira Costa or MBMS student in history for the first time is absolutely amazing.
I’ve been tutoring for a while now. Before coming to the Study Hut, I
worked as a private tutor and substitute teacher in New Jersey for
about 4 years. During that time, there was one question I was asked
over and over again. It had nothing to do with sines or cosines. It
had no relation to bicameral legislature. And it bared no resemblance
to anything in chemistry. The question was a simple one: WHY DO I HAVE
TO KNOW THIS?!
And parents, let’s be fair; we’ve ALL asked this in the past. We’ve
all experience the study session where we have to answer 14 questions
relating to alternate interior angles, and we couldn’t think of a
single instance when we’d use the information in real life. We were
usually given the same excuses as well:
-“Maybe you’ll have a job with a lot of math.”
-“You’ll need to know it to get into college.”
-“You need to know it because it’s ON THE TEST.”
-“Because I said so.”
All valid. All true. But none of these speak to the average Manhattan
Beach student. And, let’s face it, how often DO you use trigonometry
and chemistry in your real life? (Engineers and doctors, put your
hands down, I was being rhetorical.)
This is how I try to explain the value of education to my students:
When you go to the gym, you do pushups. Are you doing this because of
how often you push yourself up in real life? No. You do it because it
trains your body, and allows it to do other physical activities when
you need to. It makes your body strong. And to get strong, your body
needs to do a variety of exercises. Just doing pushups wont cut it.
It’s the same thing with your mind. You’re not going through Trig and
Chem and Bio and History because of how often you’ll use them in real
life. You’re taking these classes in order to TRAIN YOUR MIND HOW TO
THINK. You’re making your mind strong, so that, later in life, it will
be ready for when you really need it. By studying so many different
subjects, you’re practicing the fine arts of thinking analytically and
critically, which is beyond important in any career.
Plus, memorizing the state capitals is a great trick at parties.
I’m sure there are plenty of tutoring spots in Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach and countless more in the south bay but I’m in inclined to believe that few can measure up to The Study Hut in Manhattan Beach. Many parents struggle with where to send their children to get some help. They try to give their children a leg up so they maybe they won’t have to struggle as much in the future. The choices for giving a child an advantage can be mind boggling at times. There are so many places making claims about improving grades and how they will accomplish this amazing transformation in your child. They make promises of making them an “A” student over night. The truth is there is no magic formula. There is no making your child an overnight genius. Change comes with work and constant work to boot. The work is a communal project; it can’t come in a tutor session alone. Now, this is the place where the real separation comes into play. Other places say they will change the culture your child has developed but only care about what occurs in the tutoring session only. However the dedicated folks at the study hut aka the hut make sure to communicate with the parents on the work which is accomplished and needs to be accomplished on a nightly basis. They call home and let parents know their child still have 3 hours worth of work left and work to develop strategies to make sure this isn’t the norm. They make sure the culture created at the hut also becomes the culture the student sees at home. Because it takes a village to raise a child, no matter how big or small the village might be.
Study Hut is the greatest tutoring center in Manhattan Beach because it’s not like school. When I first walked into the Study Hut, I was expecting off-white walls and a silent ambience; I was expecting bored students and tired tutors. These were my past experiences when I tried out various tutor centers back in high school. But when I went through the front door of the Study Hut, all my stereotypes were immediately crushed. There was a cozy feel to the rooms, each with a different theme, from a jungle room, to an India room, to a beach room. There were young fresh tutors who were teaching with passion and patience while keeping students entertained with a friendliness so often absent in tutors.
Students often need a change of pace from school to effectively do their homework and learn the concepts. The Study Hut offers this unique environment, where students can unwind, do their homework, work out the kinks before a test, and of course munch on a few snacks. Most importantly, aside from the fun that both the students and tutors have, there are immediate results with the students. Owners Rob, Sean-Patrick, and all other managerial staff do an amazing job of keeping track of students’ progress and keep open and honest communication with both the student and the parent. This keeps everyone from the tutor, to the student, to the parent accountable and produces results.
So again, why is the Study Hut the greatest tutoring center in Manhattan Beach? Because everyone has fun, everyone learns, and everyone earns better grades.
You may have heard this one before. It involves a ceramics class.
It was a fairly large and popular class at the school, so the teacher had to split it into two sections: Ceramics 101a and Ceramics 101b.
The teacher, a brilliant potter but a capricious and insufferable man, decided that he’d grade each of his sections differently and arbitrarily.
On the first day of class he announced to the students of 101a the following:
“At the end of the semester you will be required to hand in one pot and one pot only. I will judge your skill, artistry, and technical prowess based on what I see in that one pot, and that in turn will decide your grade for the whole semester.”
An hour later, he announced to the students of 101b a very different message:
“At the end of the semester, I will grade your performance based solely on the number of pots you complete throughout the year. I don’t care how well they’re executed, what shape they are, or how quickly you worked on them. All I care about is how many you make. The more you make the higher your grade will be.”
In short, one group was to be evaluated on the quality of their work, and the other on their quantity.
Here’s where things get strange.
At the end of the semester, the students from the Quantity Class produced better pots than the students from the Quality Class. Far better. Truly masterful work. On the other hand, the final projects handed in by the Quality Class resembled the pots that the students from the Quantity Class were making on their first few days.
What is the lesson here? In short, it’s practice makes perfect. The only way to get to success is to first fail. To get good at something you need to do it. A lot.
So for that reason we here at Study Hut in Manhattan Beach don’t just recite information to our students and expect them to absorb it. We test them on it. Ruthlessly. We make them fail repeatedly when they’re with us, in the hopes that when they are in the exam room they will succeed.
We all know why Study Hut is the best place to learn: it is part of the community. Today as part of my
new responsibilities as supplier-in-chief, I had to visit all 3 Hut branches and check out the supplies. One
characteristic stuck out at all three. Each felt human. Each felt like a place that cares about its students.
Each felt like it was a product of its community.
This is because Study Hut really is a product of its community. The owners hail from Mira Costa High
School. Many of our tutors are from the South Bay area. Even the plants we use to decorate our rooms
are purchased from a local Manhattan Beach vendor. We take pride that we support our hometowns.
Other franchise organizations don’t have a stake in the well-being of our neighborhoods. Study Hut
does because we were born here, we grew up here and we reside here. As a tutor, I feel part of a
family, not a company. Our students feel comfortable here, encouraging candid dialogue that really
increases a students learning capability. Our study environment is pretty much the most awesome place
ever. Epic. What other place has a jungle theme room?
When I’m not tutoring at Study Hut in Manhattan Beach, I like to volunteer my time as a baseball coach at Westchester Babe Ruth. I see a lot of similarities to coaching and tutoring. One of the most important aspects to both is being able to relate to players and students. I was never very receptive to the old, over the hill baseball coaches because it’s hard to relate to them. Besides baseball, there’s not too much we have in common and it’s very hard to build a rapport with them. I feel the same can be said with tutoring, because I’m not too far removed from high school its a lot easier for the other tutors and me to relate to the students. When you are in a comfortable environment, it just provides a solid learning experience. Another very interesting relationship is the amount of work both students and baseball players put into their respective fields. No one is born an All Star or brainiac, it takes a lot of effort and hard work. The best players on the field and the best students in the classroom share a common characteristic and that’s work ethic. The ones that put the extra effort in more often than not are the ones who excel in sports or school. One thing I try to stress to my students from Mira Costa and Manhattan Beach Middles School is that they should never sacrifice their schoolwork for sports. A few of my high school students think that just because they play sports they can just cruise through high school. This is most definitely not the case. If they have ambitions to play collegiate they first must have the grades to get in college, and they will also need strong study skills. Road games in college drag student athletes out of classes for days if not weeks. If they haven’t established strong study skills in high school, they are doomed in college. Luckily the student athletes have a resource like Study Hut at their finger tips, and can learn the skills to succeed in the classroom.
On an exam, the last thing you want to see is a trick question. They’re insidious, deceitful, sneaky, and frankly below the belt. It’s simply unfair for a teacher to hit you with a slippery question and then slap a permanent demerit on your report card just because you didn’t think to suspect that your kindly old professor, benevolent font of all knowledge, was out to make you look like a fool.
Luckily for us here at Study Hut Tutoring in Manhattan Beach, you’re not being graded and we’re not your teachers. So I throw trick questions around like it’s my job, ’cause it sort of is. Let me explain.
In a standard classroom situation, teachers need to make sure that everyone is on roughly the same page. Concepts are still being introduced, and the most basic, standard forms of the subject matter are being pounded into your head. At first, there is little room for nuance or exceptions; the core ideas need to be learned by everyone, and the teacher doesn’t have the luxury of taking her students down interesting tangents.
However, the benefit of having your own Study Hut tutor in Manhattan Beach is that we work one on one with your kid; and can tailor our pace and content moment to moment based on how they’re doing. That means that the instant that I feel my student has really grasped the core idea and is starting to coast, you better be sure I’m going to throw them a curve ball to keep their minds active and open. Now, this does not mean that every second of the class is spent trying to fool and confuse them; that would be counterproductive. I use trick questions sparingly to mix up the pace and refocus their attention if they ever seem complacent.
This might mean asking them for the maximum value of an upward facing parabola when they’re used to me asking for the minimum (the answer’s infinity, not the y value of the vertex), or what tense of subjunctive will follow the phrase “No dudo que…” (which won’t take the subjunctive at all, as it indicates certainty). In any case, the student will be required to examine the full breadth of their knowledge, and not just the obvious pattern in front of their eyes.
So if you’re content with just learning the basics and coasting by, you have plenty of options. If, however, you want a tutor that won’t stop at a passing grade, that will help you not only understand but actually master the material, Study Hut is the place for you.
Yesterday was a busy Thursday. In fact, every school week there is a busy Thursday, whether you come to Study Hut Tutoring or not. With tests and quizzes, homework and projects, six classes of papers going in and out of the backpack everyday and all your friends jammed into one classroom, the task of managing a workload is impossible. Am I right? Let us take a quick look of how this impossible situation appears when our 8th grader Corey sits down for his tutoring hour. Corey is a very sharp student who is able to breeze through his pre-algebra assignments. He is very capable in other areas too. He is maintaining a strong grade in social studies, however, his grades dont reflect his intelligence.
So what is the matter? What do we do? How can we bump up these “C” grades up if Corey doesn’t need help with the actual subject matter? Lucky for Corey, the Study Hut knows exactly what to do. After speaking with his mom, I know she is frustrated with Corey’s sluggish performance around the house. So now Corey is at Study Hut, sitting down with me. The first thing I do is look at his daily planner. It is a bad sign when the whole thing is blank. The planner is the tool that fosters accountability, so if the planner is blank, Corey isn’t even accountable with himself, let alone with parents, teachers, and his tutor. The next step is manually going through the backpack. This is crucial to set the record straight and explain the reasoning and utility of behind using the daily planner.
After all, why do something if it doesn’t serve a greater purpose, save time, or help in the short term and in the long term. Young students are no different. You would never do a lot of things the right way if there was no direct or indirect benefit. After digging through every subject and organizing the folder, we see that there is a pile of old, completed work that can go into a folder and can be stashed away at home in the closet. The other pile was larger than I would like. This pile had a ton of incomplete work. Our plan from here on out at home everyday and at tutoring is as follows:
1)Write in the planner for every subject, during each class period, every week.
2) take notes each class period, everyday
3) make a list prior to tutoring of what we will be working on at Study Hut, and what will still have to be done at home.
4) Make one study tool (flashcards, outline, study guide, practice test) for each class each week.
5) show all of this to the tutor to remain accountable during bi-weekly tutoring sessions.
These simple tasks will, and have already started to, pull grades up, increase accountability, and lead to domination.
My daughter is an 8th grader at a middle school in the Torrance
Unified School District, and this year she has really been struggling with her classes. I’m not sure if her classes are getting harder, she isn’t trying as hard as she used to, sports are taking up too much of her time or what! I know she’s a bright girl and she’s always done well in her classes before, but I just don’t know what’s happening this year. Can you offer some advice? Thanks! Read the rest of this entry »
