3. When students want to provide back-story
Back-story is the story of a student’s life. Sometimes it refers to their academic life, and sometimes it refers to their entire life.
Some students do feel that they cannot be taught by someone who does not understand:
- what they are "going through", both in life and in school
- what their issues are with regard to learning
- what their issues are with regard to their instructors
In my experience, this is particularly true for students in the Math Lab, but it also applies to some students in the main tutoring area as well. For these people, you have to let them tell you their story. Otherwise, you will be destined to fail.
Why is this? Sometimes people need to feel "understood" before exposing their vulnerabilities - both in academic matters and in life matters - to you. For example, an Algebra student might be hesitant to disclose to you that he or she lacks basic arithmetic skills. A prerequisite to that student feeling comfortable enough to disclose that to you is that you have first been made aware of the difficult life circumstances that led to that shortcoming in the student’s competencies. That way, the student is assured that you won’t simply see their lack as the result of personal character flaws such as laziness or low intelligence.
If you are the kind of tutor who does not have the patience or belief in this kind of support-giving, then you should hand that student over to some other tutor. Some tutors are better at math, and some are better at people skills. Both kinds are needed. Know what you are, and don't be afraid to exchange students with other tutors to optimize the total tutor/student goodness-of-fit. In fact, this leads to the next comment, below.