I have been teaching informally or formally for over 15 years now and I focus on a subject that many dread - math. I faced a challenging assignment recently having to tutor a student with special needs in my neighborhood. I had my initial reservations about being able to teach someone with learning difficulties. But I had always been interested in teaching and sharing my love for math. And given some time I had spent with Autism Speaks and as I count  “Chicken Soup for the Soul, Children with Special Needs” as one of my favorite books; I took up the challenge.

I was shocked to learn that I was to teach “calculation of the inverse of a 3 X 3 matrix”. It is a topic that could make any student feel mathematically challenged. Heck, even I found it challenging in school!

But here I was trying to make the best of situation. I drew on my 15 years of teaching experience – teaching low income kids in Kolkata ,Ranchi and Chennai (in India) and formal training for competitive tests in USA, NY and through Edufire globally including students from Latin America, Japan, UK, Egypt and Indonesia.

The core concept with math and life is process. Once on understands the process and knows it; one can solve any problem in the particular area. I use some well defined processes, when I take free classes to teach “solving linear equations”. I am so confident of my teaching abilities that I offer a $5 gift card if you can not solve every linear equations using my process. But let me not digress, here.

The key (as with any student) was to understand what the student is good at and what he is not. I realized he could not remember any formula. He could do a number of step by step instructions – in the correct order if he understood why. But asking him to remember a formula was often too much to ask for.

I used sequences and pictures and various processes to explain how determinants were calculated. I grappled at nights to figure out how he could find the determinant of a 3 X 3 matrix without using any formula. Trial and error; and multiple new methods later, I discovered a method that I now call “tiles”. During the 5^th weekend together, he solved the first 3 X 3 martix inverse on his own. Its been a month since he learned the technique. He now teaches others how to solve inverses of matrix :) and he teaches better than I do. His immense patience makes him a better teacher than I may ever be.

After many classes, I wonder how much I learn from each student. A new way of explaining a concept. A new way of teaching. A new way of learning. A new way of loving math. And teaching him helped me appreciate the fact so much more.

Join me in a class as we explore and learn to love math :)