An honest account of being a mentor, the initial fears and challenges, what one learns from teaching, and why stressing is unnecessary. All this from a seasoned author who has been involved in multiple groups over three semesters, helping, teaching, and following every step of the E-tanoda program from the beginning. You are reading Bakó Anna’s writing.

Of course, I had some idea when I applied to the e-tanoda. Then, naturally, all my expectations were overturned, and it turned out that joining was a much better decision than I ever thought. To start with, there was the tutoring. Well, obviously, something came to mind when I heard this word. I certainly never imagined in my wildest dreams that my mentee would want to improve from a B to an A in math.

Yes, speaking of math... I'm not a math genius. It wasn’t planned that I would teach math, but when it was requested, I took it on with some trepidation. And I don’t regret it! It required a bit more preparation, but in the long run, it boosted my self-confidence (especially in math classes) – that's why I would encourage everyone to dare to step out of their comfort zone. So, it wasn’t easy at first, and I often had to do some serious self-examination. This was one of the first things I learned: not to cling to my expectations. My mentee always knew what he needed, and if I was patient enough, this always became clear. All I needed was to appear interested, which didn’t even require much effort.

Another area where I improved a lot thanks to the e-tanoda was creativity. How do I explain some completely abstract, nonsensical literary concept in a way that my mentee doesn’t lose interest but understands and learns it? And if he doesn’t understand the first version, how do I explain it differently? More than once, I found myself coming up with multiple explanations simultaneously. And sometimes it seemed like everyone was speaking a different language. I say this because I was in two study groups: in one, it was me, another mentor, and the mentee; in the other, it was just the mentee and me. In both groups, I saw some pretty wild things, and I was quite surprised at how we could completely talk past each other. For example, my co-mentor explained what a metaphor is. Nicely, as it should be, with definitions and examples, but it soon became clear that our mentee still didn’t understand. Then I stepped in and explained the same thing differently, which also didn’t help, and I was even told I wasn’t explaining it right. We ended up having to look up the relevant text in the textbook and go through it together three times before we got it straight. The most important lesson for me from this case was that you must not panic (we handled the situation well in this regard).

Everyone thinks differently, and it’s sometimes hard to find the explanation the other person will understand. You mustn’t force things. The best approach is not to rush and proceed at a comfortable pace. My mentees never stressed about this, so eventually, I stopped too. If needed, we added an extra session, and over time we got to know each other’s style, which made things easier. This is the biggest advantage of individual sessions: personalization.

Author: Bakó Anna