The story is often similar: A parent contacts me, saying, “Every time I ask my teen how school was, all I hear is ‘fine.’ That’s it. But now the teacher tells me she hasn’t seen much homework turned in lately—and there was a quiz yesterday that didn’t go well. I thought I’d been keeping up. There’s sports, then dinner, then homework. Which I thought was getting done.”
I have to laugh, telling parents that I get a lot of “Fine” too at the start of our tutoring sessions, when I may casually ask, “So how did school go this week?” I hear it from the middle and high school students I tutor. Doesn’t matter: “Fine” is the first go-to response.
But once we settle in, your student will start to share more specific answers. If I ask, “How did that math worksheet on systems of equations we’d started go when you finished it on your own?” or “Are you guys conjugating any new -ar verbs in Spanish?”—that’s when the real answers start to surface.
As I watch your student work, I notice what’s been missed, what’s still unclear, and what might be quietly weighing on them. In our dedicated time—without interruptions—we build trust. That’s when homework help becomes true comprehension.
Neither a parent nor I can see everything a student is managing, at school or at home. But in tutoring, we all meet in the middle. And that’s where the real learning begins.