At the end of Year 9, I really lacked direction.

There were moments where I even considered leaving at the end of Year 10, getting a trade somewhere, and following the conventional path of a lot of kids I grew up with. You weren’t often celebrated for being a nerd, and any ATAR over 90 was considered an anomaly in my community.

55% in the Year 9 English exam was a bit of a bummer – I thought my narrative was pretty decent, but then again, I didn’t read any of the prescribed books and completely ‘freestyled’ the exam with little practise! Science wasn’t much better; I could never be bothered to revise as the term progressed, and never deeply understood what was being taught to us in the first place. My study strategy was basically just to cram a bunch of random facts in my brain in the final days and go into the exam with my fingers (and toes) crossed.

I was often told that I was ‘naturally smart’, but wasted a lot of this potential by cruising through life and not always applying myself in the best ways. However, in Year 10, something in me just clicked. Finally! 

There was one subject I had always loved and gone exceptionally well in, and that was Mathematics. I began to wonder – what was it about my approach to learning maths that made it so much more effective, so seamless, and actually enjoyable? After a few weeks of deep consideration, I realised that my ‘attitude’, ‘appreciation’, and ‘systems’ associated with learning maths were what had formulated such a positive feedback loop. Really, what I mean by each of these principles is the following: 

Attitude: adopting a ‘growth’ mindset; falling in love with the process of wrestling with a new concept; going from zero knowledge at all about a topic to completely mastering it. I noticed that I treated maths somewhat like a video game – each time I sat down for a session, I was aiming to just level up that little bit more than yesterday; to gain a few more equations in my mathematical toolbox and become increasingly proficient in applying these to foreign contexts. 

Appreciation: maths was (and still is) beautiful to me. It is a language that describes the world around us in all its complexity. The more I learn, the more I am obsessed and intrigued by it. What had made studying maths so pleasant for me was that I could see its direct usefulness to society. I knew that if I could begin to see the underlying utility and broader teachings to be extracted from each of my other subjects, studying them would not be such a chore for me after all. 

Systems: learning maths had seemed very formulaic and predictable to me. You didn’t have to reinvent the wheel and you merely just had to become skilled at following reliable processes to brew a mumbling-jumbling mess of a question into a neat and ordered final solution. Bringing order to chaos. I knew that there must be some way that I could create a ‘formula’ – a predictable, simple-yet-effective recipe for success in each of my other subjects, be it essay-writing in the humanities or grinding out STEM research papers. 

By applying these three pillars to my education, the rest is history! I have gone from a directionless 15-year-old to an accomplished student of life who is hungry to learn as much as they can about everything this world has to offer. 

With my teaching style based heavily around my learning philosophy, I am here to ensure that you can make the same positive transformation as I did in my academic journey, and leave no ounce of potential unfulfilled! 

I look forward to kicking goals with you as we work together.