Rebecca Zook - Math Tutoring Online

I recently asked one of my students what the most important thing was that I could share with you.

She said, “You have to tell them about the difference between perfectionism and mastery.”

This is something I’ve started sharing with my students, and I want you to know about it too!

Here’s what I’ve realized.

Perfectionism doesn’t create perfection.

It creates rigidity and stress.

True perfection comes from a willingness to take risks

and a commitment to the process of mastery.

The deepest accomplishment, the deepest achievement,

it doesn’t come when we’re looking over our shoulder,

wondering if we’re doing it right,

or we’re good enough.

It comes when we’re just really engaged with what we’re doing,

and open about what we don’t understand and what doesn’t make sense yet,

and committed to practicing until those parts that are strange or uncomfortable

become automatic and internalized and pleasurable.

Do you see your child taking a perfectionistic approach to their struggles with math… and it’s just not working?

Do you wish that there was someone you could send them to where they could be supported in actually cultivating true mastery of math, instead of just looking like they’ve got their act together?

Just click here to get started with your special application for my one-on-one math tutoring programs. Once your application is received, we’ll set up a special phone call to get clear if my approach would be a good fit for your child.

I’m here for you, and I’m so glad we’re connected!

Sending you love,
REBECCA

That’s me speaking at AAUW’s Tech Savvy event for 6th-9th grade girls and their parents!

Is your child plagued by math anxiety, even though they’re already busting their butt?

Or do you really want to support your child to be truly math-confident, but don’t know how to connect with them about math?

I recently got to speak to parents about “How to Raise a Math-Confident Daughter (or Son)”, and the response was so phenomenal that I wanted to share the highlights with you!

This approach totally works whether you’re coming at it from a parenting perspective or applying it in your own classroom or community.

I’ve come to understand that being math-confident all comes down to developing and nurturing a Mastery Mindset.

1. The first piece of a mastery mindset is to have a Growth Mindset – knowing that math is a skill that everyone can nurture and develop with effort. (Carol Dweck has an awesome body of research about this.)

One of the ways I help my students develop a growth mindset is through using empathy to create an atmosphere of camaraderie and trust, so students feel really safe to talk about what they don’t understand.

I’ve come to understand that what keeps us from understanding math isn’t our intellect, but our emotions. And instead of ignoring our emotions, we can respect them and work with them as a tool to create mastery.

For example, there’s a student who came to me at the end of her Algebra 2 year. Math felt like a foreign language to her. By working with her emotions explicitly as part of our work, she ended up becoming the star of her pre-calculus class, nailing her oral final in front of her entire class, and enrolling in Calculus because math became something she loved.

An easy way that you can start to use empathy to develop a growth mindset is just to ask your child the very simple question, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how does this feel?” This also helps students develop the super powerful meta-skill of self-assessing their own mastery.

Would you like your child to receive super-customized, one-on-one support in developing their own math mastery mindset – so math becomes something totally doable and enjoyable?

Just click here to get started with your special application for my one-on-one math tutoring programs. Once your application is received, we’ll set up a special phone call to get clear if my approach would be a good fit for your child. I’m excited to connect!

Related posts:
The secret to getting straight As in math (it’s not what you think)
“Now I feel connected to math”
The Secret Ingredients of True Math Mastery
Do you wish your kid could feel like Albert Einstein?
Does having a math tutor make you a “loser”?

Yesterday I was working with a student on some very sophisticated geometry problems that require a lot of synthesis and creativity. She had come to me with the questions she hadn’t been able to figure out from her summer geometry homework assignment.

For a second I thought she meant she hadn’t known how to start on the problem, but while I was putting the diagram up on the whiteboard for us to refer to together, she said, referring to her preparation, “I was just doing this big thing, and I don’t even know if it’s right.”

I was like, awesome! I was so happy that my student dove in and explored, even though she wasn’t sure if she had done the right thing.

When math becomes more demanding, it frequently requires two completely different skills: really internalizing everything you’re learning so much that it’s completely automatic, (like writing your name or eating with a fork); and THEN, being able to creatively combine those ideas, concepts, and strategies in ways you’ve never done before when you’re faced with something mathematically completely unfamiliar.

I told this student how proud I was of her that she had tried to solve the problem so extensively even though she wasn’t sure what to do – instead of just giving up or waiting.

I explained, “It just means that you’re in the exploration and experimentation zone, instead of the repeating and recycling zone.” We go through the process of internalization in order to flourish when faced with the unfamiliar.

And then, we train ourselves to be comfortable – even lighthearted and jubilational – when faced with something we’ve never seen before. To be comfortable with being uncomfortable, and to ask ourselves questions like:

What could I try here?

OK, if that didn’t work, what could I try instead?

So, is it OK to not be totally sure? Absolutely! In fact, it is an extremely important space to become acquainted with, and to befriend: “the not-totally-sure-if-it’s-right space.”

Are you worried that your kid’s current math issues will prevent them from understanding math in their own unique way and being able to live their dreams?

Do you deeply desire that your kid receive high-level, super-customized math support that feeds their autonomy and helps them really do what they’re here to do in the world?

Just click here to get started with your special application for my one-on-one math tutoring programs. Once your application is received, we’ll set up a special phone call to get clear if my approach would be a good fit for your child.

I’m here for you, and I’m so glad we’re connected!

Sending you love,
REBECCA