12th August 2010 9:00
By Blue Tutors
Weird title? It must appear that way, but hopefully everything will become clear. It starts from a very simple, if abstract, idea: can you teach a giraffe to whistle? No-one has ever heard a giraffe whistle, so is it the case that they physically can’t? Or, can a good tutor, given enough time and effort, teach a giraffe to purse his lips and whistle as we can?
It’s probably time to get to the point. When addressing the question, we shouldn’t consider whether or not a giraffe can whistle, but rather whether they want to. Does whistling serve any purpose whatsoever for a giraffe, and if not, why do they care whether they can whistle or not. So the answer to the question is no, you can’t teach a giraffe to whistle, but because they have no interest in whistling, whether they can or not is completely irrelevant.
This is an idea that we must take into our tutoring. There is no point trying to teach your students something which they have no interest in learning. The student must want to learn, and hopefully they will ask to be tutored. Obviously this often happens via their parents, but as a tutor one of the best things you can do at the start of the lesson is ask why they want a tutor. The reaction might be indifference, and a grunt of “because my parents made me”, but you can then ask if they mind having a conversation about how private tuition could be of benefit.
All the time you should be looking for permission to tutor, if you have it then your student won’t be a giraffe, and will want to whistle.