Patience is rewarding

Just want to share with you guys that patience could be very rewarding.

I do some casual tutoring during the semester. Basically I teach 1st year students chemistry, its just introductory chemistry which is the same standard as high school chemistry. So really really basic stuff. The kids that took this course never done any chemistry before in their life. Think again when you were in high school learning chem for your 1st time. Everything seems so alien to you. I guess that's what those kids would feel.

My role is not to teach them but to assist them in their learning by giving them worksheets and practice questions related to their lectures. This week we went through lewis structure with them. It was soo hard explaining to them the simple stuff when you have a deeper knowledge in that area. Sometimes when we know too much its hard to go back to the basic.

So my partner was explaining to them the steps to get lewis structure for a compound and these kids just dont understand it. It's quite frustrating at first because we know that this thing is simple and yet they are struggling with it. They were asking questions like:

"why there are 2 electrons when you have a single bond?"

"why is there 10 electrons in phosphorus when they can only achieve and octet?"

" how can 5 chlorines attach to 1 phosphorus?" (while drawing all the chlorine and phosphorus in one line)

You may think that these are stupid questions but those were the questions that they asked. If you are the type of person that is quick tempered you may be annoyed when they asked you these questions. But if you go through the problems with them step by step and be patient with all their questions you will find it very rewarding. Once they have grasp the concept and they know what to do, you have this joy feeling deep inside. You will feel that it was all worth it. You should see their face when they had grasp the concept, it left you with this feeling of satisfaction. It really does feels good..hehe

Know I know how my mum feels when she teaches her students. It is frustrating when the people that you teach just dont seem to get what you are talking about. The only way out of it is to be patient and you will see that the outcome is really rewarding. That's all.

Good night. Till then~