A spate of tuition 霉运

They say that if you have not been shat by birds (which happened to THREE of my friends while cruising down Orchard - ML, Zymase and SL LLG), sometimes your bad luck might come in other ways. As a "Pan Dang" Buddhist, I would start to wonder if all of that has to do with my string of consecutive tuition bad lucks.

On Sunday which would be my second session with this new kid, I was gleefully telling myself that from the 3rd sessions onwards, I would keep all the spoils, since the first two lessons fees are paid to the agent. Everything went well for that day.. until the student said she would like to suspend the tuition till April because that would be close to exams. Hence, she would like to reserve that seat (i.e. another way of saying I could not take in another kid). With this, she nearly proceeded to pay me until I told her that things are not so straightforward as the agent has to take some fees too. Calling the agent and explaining the problem, the agent's first reaction was "she's crazy. This is the first time I ever heard of such thing in all my years as an agent. You have every right to say your piece", came her reply. Obviously that such a deal works against me and the first session now belongs to the agent. It was an investment gone awry.

Never mind.

Then another kid called me and told me that someone had introduced me to him. Just as I thought that my previous experience has finally paid off with word-of-mouth recommendations, and of course a bit of haggling, which led me to do a pay cut since he was being recommended, he got back to me later to say that he would want to start tuition only in June. He mouthed the same magical words, "Can you reserve a place for me till June?"

What is wrong with all these people!!!!??

SL LLG has been most empathetic. Having reached the maestro level of 金枝玉孽, he taught me that the best way to deal with such people is to say YES, SURE when we actually mean that it depends on vacancies by then.

The third misfortune came. I slaughtered the Golden Goose.

I took in this kid last November and she had been the most problematic kid of all. I taught I struck gold when the Mum decided to pay me for a fee that was pretty "decent". On the first day, I knew why, and as a warning to all tuition teachers out there, when things appear too good to be true, the product must be defective in some ways.

Verbally abusive, the kid 下 me a 马 威 on the first day. She snared, "If you are late for my tuition, I will fire you! And one more thing you need to know, I dun like tuition teacher who are 罗唆. You want to tell me, you better get to the point. Dun nag-- YOU UNDERSTAND? (pointing her finger at me).

My blood pressure must have shot up by a few hundred percentage point. How old is she? Just Sec 2.

Of course, as professional as I am, I told her that in all my tuitions, I work with the student together and it is a form of relationship. Respect work both ways, and I always believe in this. That sort of tamed her down a bit.

I later learnt from the Mum that she had been sarcastically treated by a lot of her previous tutors. All these was because she was an underperforming kid as she was banded into a poor class where she mixed with the wrong people, leading her to have a vituperative mouth, a lack of respect for tuition teachers and relatives and a very warped view of the world.

This helped me a bit in understanding why she is the way she is. Everytime she threw her tantrum, I would tell myself this kid is facing a crisis. Let's just be patient with her. After all, that was what I learnt in educational psychology.

The mum is also a wierdo herself as once, the kid told me that she did well for history and the mum scolded her for doing well in a humanity subject which is looked down upon. Worse still, the kid said she had a hearing problem (which I observed is indeed true) because her mum used to nag at her, and she blocked out the "noise' by blasting her ears with music. Now she regretted it, she says.

Tuition for her has never been her idea. It is her Mum's. The mother expects her to get A1 fof the maths and sciences because they are supposed to be the strengths of the parents, and theoretically their progeny should exhibit the same level of mastery. CMI hor.. I mean, I feel so sad for the kid, but I get the occassional abuse when the kid just made a ruckus and said she could not follow my explanation (she was not giving in her best in listening) and kept on comparing me with a previous tutor who had left to do a furniture business.

The last straw came yesterday when I told her that there was no point for me to carry on since she could not understand me and the mum would be wasting her money. She said that she had already told her Mum previously about not wanting any tuition and would still get an A1 for her Mum to see.. to spite her (in my opinion). Frankly, I think she is a kid with special needs and honestly, she's not that brilliant with short term memory. Her short attention span makes teacher a very constipated experience.

I did not want her to classify me as "one of those tuition teachers since all tution teachers are idiotic and arrogant and they only know to say that I am stupid". I felt like telling her that she categorically labelled ALL tuition teachers as idiots. Does this make her any different from these blacksheep tutors who call ALL students stupid? But I held my peace, kept my poise and composure, though it was a tumultous storm inside me that could have exploded if it were someone else. I told myself I am going to leave her house with dignity.

So, voila. I axed the deal. And with dignity, I left, not turning back.