Tutoring Permission Slip: Fill & Download for Free

When trying to explain a concept to people, especially students, who might find such concepts difficult to understand, a tutor / lecturer, in an attempt to clarify his /her meaning so that there is no chance of misunderstanding, may very well say, “Let me make myself clear - ……….” (eg. Under no circumstances are you allowed inside the laboratory without a permission slip signed by your tutor.”)

Girl in a set of boy/girl twins. From kindergarten through 1st grade in differing classes. From 2nd through 8th in the same. High school varied per course.I think it depends somewhat on their personalities what you do but I know I hated being in a class with my brother. We ended up being together almost 24/7 and really didn't have any time whatsoever to be independent of each other. We were as different as can be and yet still ended up being lumped together. It is also very hard to try new things and take new risks when you have someone right there whose opinion can shape how you see yourself. Embarrass yourself in fronts of your peers; eh you'll get over it eventually. In front of a sibling? You will never live it down (they'll make certain of that.)Another note; teachers cannot seem to help holding us responsible for each other on some level. If he forgot a permission slip/homework they would question why I hadn't reminded him. If I was struggling with a concept he got easily they wanted to know why he didn't tutor me, etc., etc.It got really old fast.

Yeah, I know there are 100+ answers and I’m probably not adding anything too new, but I keep seeing this one pop up in my feed and I have a variety of perspectives on it. Currently, I love school. Previously, I hated school. Before that, I was ambivalent. Before that, I hated it, and before that I liked it, mostly.I’ve seen a number of current students reflecting some of my thoughts at the time, but at 28 I have a more evolved perspective, and can more easily figure out what the “real” problem I had was, rather than the somewhat played out “when will I use…” type of issues. I have a much more nuanced opinion on that issue, but that’s probably appropriate for a different answer.I had different reasons for loving or hating school throughout time, and the fun thing about being an adult is that it’s harder to dismiss my answer due to ageism. Even more fun, I teach. So its even harder to dismiss.Elementary school: I generally liked it since I could see my friends, make arts and crafts, and learn things. I felt trapped by homework often, and some problems that seem small from an adult perspective were huge, such as my handwriting. My handwriting has always been awful, but it was a source of great distress in elementary school as we got a letter grade for it. I would regularly get B-’s and C’s. There’s literally no perspective for an elementary schooler that gets in trouble because of a C in Handwriting, no way to know that your problem isn’t actually the end of the world.I imagine a lot of elementary schoolers begin to get poisoned on school in this way, because without actual experience and points of reference, and with a society that says “you are your letter grades,” how can you not? Its also a bit early in development to start questioning things to a really deep level, and behave in a way that isn’t merely reactive to your environment.By 5th grade though, I hated school. Not just because of the homework or seemingly nonsensical structures forced on us, but because I was actively bullied by both students and my teacher. I have written about this in other answers, but the school environment is toxic to a lot of students, so any benefit you might be getting by being there is overridden by its sheer toxicity. School becomes synonymous with pain.Middle school: I was overall ambivalent toward school in middle school. It was a tough transition period but I was being challenged academically, had a friend group, and good teachers so it was better overall. I find it hard to claim I “hated school” in middle school so it’s a good contrast. I also had enough free time to pursue some hobbies and have fun.If school has supportive teachers, a good friend/support group, time to pursue their own interests, and classes that generally match developmental levels, it is a good experience. However, that combination is a rare unicorn. “Why do many students hate school?” They don’t have this winning combination.High school: I hated high school so much. There wasn’t a whole lot redeemable about it, except maybe marching band.Reasons:~I slept through 1–2 classes everyday after getting up at 530 to be sitting in class by 715. In middle school, I slept on the bus, because middle school started later than high school and we dropped the high schoolers off before driving to the middle school. I usually tried to grab a window seat and passed out on my backpack. High school? Nope, I slept through first or second period instead. Every couple weeks I would come home from school pass out uncontrollably on my bed until about dinner, when I would eat and then go to bed early. I tried to go to bed earlier but couldn’t fall asleep until after midnight no matter what I did, even if I just laid in bed and stared at the ceiling, or tried to meditate. My problems with this were generally belittled as me not trying hard enough.My senior year I got “late arrival” by scheduling study hall first period and having my parents fill out a permission slip to let me drive myself in late (this is a privilege for seniors only that was offered by the school, I wasn’t some special case). I got a 4.0 my senior year. This is not a coincidence. Sometimes I imagine what my life would have been like in high school if I had late arrival starting freshman year. It’s depressing.~Utter powerlessness and grappling with double standards. This is the root of most of the answers. This ties into helicopter parenting, having a schedule handed to you, being told what to do, having your questions and concerns belittled because of your age, being told “you think you know everything because you are a teenager” when you’re asking questions so you can understand what you know you don’t understand, being restrained by nonsensical dress codes, being told that every single quiz will make or break your chances at college, questioning forbidden topics such as religion and societal mores, being told to stop being lazy and get a job in an economically depressed area, but being told you can’t even apply for certain kinds of jobs or in certain towns that have more opportunities, and so on. A lot of other answer-ers had similar problems, and it all boils down to the sheer powerlessness of being old enough to begin to reason and understand and running headlong into a huge gilded cage built by “adults”. A gilded cage is still a cage.~An economically poor district. This one was especially bad in my area. We were not a rich district, because that’s what happens when your school budgets are based on property taxes in an economically depressed region. The coal dried up, jobs got shipped overseas in the 90s, and the area still hasn’t recovered. I graduated before the 2008 recession, thank goodness, but they were constantly trying to pass levies so the school districts could afford to run. These measures almost always got voted down because no one could afford to pay more for schools. As a result, our best school was… mediocre at best. Understaffed and undersupplied were the least of our problems. We were also stricken with government mandates we couldn’t afford to implement, and it got worse after No Child Left Behind. I had a few teachers with ridiculous job security and no filter. I learned more about educational politics listening to them rant about the bullshit that went on behind the scenes… but ultimately there can be systemic reasons to hate school. How could anyone love attending an underfunded, overcrowded district??~Lack of support for TAG (talented and gifted) students coupled with overcrowding and greater higher reasoning skills so you fully understand that you’re being cheated. I remember an assignment from elementary school that described the proper “roles” of the students in class. We were a mixed class with everyone from LD-TAG. The role of the average student was to listen to the teachers, take notes, and do a(n average) job. The role of the LD students was to, well, not break anything. Just at least try, please. The role of the advanced students was to help everyone catch up to the “average” level. This educational philosophy was present in almost all of my mixed-level classes. As an advanced student, I was all but ignored by a the vast majority of my teachers because I “wasn’t a problem” and “didn’t need help”. Instead I got to sit there bored, waiting for everyone to catch up, or was told to “teach my peers”. In kid language, “teach your peers” doesn’t mean tutoring them. It means handing them your answer sheet while they copy it. In elementary school, this philosophy was merely irritating. By high school, I understood what was going on and refused to participate, focusing on my own education instead by reading nonfiction during study time. I would get in trouble for going ahead. I would get in trouble for trying to learn above the level expected in class. I would get in trouble for doodling because I just couldn’t take sitting there anymore. It didn’t matter what I did or how good of a student I was, I was in trouble. In more advanced classes, things were a little better, but because my school district was poor, we didn’t have a whole lot of advanced offerings and we had a lot of overcrowding. Even in the advanced classes this pattern sometimes cropped up, depending on the teacher. When you’re getting in trouble for being a good student and learning more than is in the curriculum, how is any student expected to enjoy school????~Inability to motivate studentsMy teachers and parents were trying to motivate me to do better. They did this through threats and lectures. “You have a B in math, I thought you wanted to be an astronaut? If you want to do any STEM thing you have to be getting all As in math all the time or you can’t do it, ever. Get your grades up. Science and math go hand in hand.”Guess what I did? Gave up my dreams in STEM at the ripe old age of … 12? This is the kind of “motivation” most teachers and parents use, and it serves only to poison the well for the students. Want them to hate education? Because that’s what you’re doing… I renewed my real interest in STEM around 26. Not “too late” but in SPITE OF school, teachers, and my parents, not because of them. I am lucky.~Doesn’t match your study / learning style. Doesn’t help you learn your study / learning style. Doesn’t care.Also in elementary school we did an assignment called ‘learning styles’. According to the little quiz I took I was primarily a kinesthetic learner with secondary visual. There’s a bit of controversy about learning styles, but now that I’m #@$%ing 28 and have had time and maturity to figure out how studying works for someone who does fit a more kinesthetic profile I can firmly state that the school districts let down everyone who has a propensity towards kinesthetic learning. In our learning styles unit I was literally told that the way a kinesthetic learner might learn best is by doing projects like “making a diorama”. I could go on for a whole answer length about how school doesn’t actually teach you study skills but I’ll save that rant for a question more directly about study skills. Needless to say, there’s no support structure in place for someone who can’t watch a lecture, take notes, and do busywork-homework.On top of this good luck if you’re ADHD / have another learning disability that you can mask through high performance but that’s another answer. Things are getting better for girls with ADHD now though as research is coming out showing that a lot of us got missed because they were comparing us with the kinds of hyperactive symptoms in boys. A lot of my hatred of school came from the entire system failing me, biologically, telling me that because I wasn’t jumping out of my chair, climbing things, and blurting answers I must not have a problem and need to “try harder”. And that’s before the depression and anxiety.College: Loved it. Most of the problems of high school are gone, or at least they were for me. I went to a college that was a good fit for me with a major that was a good fit. A lot of my education was a bit more trade-based so I got to take more of what I liked and less of what I didn’t. The people I saw hating college weren’t ready for it right out of high school, or went to a college that wasn’t a good fit.“Grad School”: right now I’m in an odd place where I’m taking grad classes but am not enrolled in a program. I’m undergoing a bit of a major switch, so I have to do a lot of work before I can get into the program for real. Once again a lot of the people who hate it are in a bad fit situation. They need a different school, a different advisor, a different major. At this level, its so optional that if you don’t love it, get OUT.K-12 doesn’t have that option. You can’t just enroll in a different school. You can’t just drop out and get a job with the Bachelors’ or Masters’ you already have. You can’t change majors.Also because it’s an Ivy, I also see an alarming subset of undergrads that are still under their parents’ boots. Some of the legacy kids didn’t really choose to come here, they were told by their parents that they were coming here because it’s a family tradition. Some were forced into becoming study machines in their teenage years in order to apply to Ivies, and are just following steps A->B->C because its what they were told they had to do “for success”. Some of them are still pursuing their parents’ dreams rather than their own. Contrast that to most of my classmates in undergrad (myself included) who had to fight their parents to even be allowed to attend. I don’t know how anyone who lacks agency while being a legal adult could have any positive feelings toward school, even as an undergrad when you’re supposed to be truly discovering yourself.(Obviously, for the inevitable commenter, this isn’t the whole undergrad population, that’s why I said “subset”. Also obviously, for the inevitable Ivy league undergrad commenter, you’re not going to be able to recognize this agency-less behavior until after you’ve been out off the academic escalator for a few years. In fact, I guarantee at least one of your “overachiever” peers is displaying it. It comes from overachieving without deeply asking “why” and just because your token buddy can get an A in philosophy 101 doesn’t mean they’re self-examined.)Anyway if you made it down here, thanks for putting up with the whole answer, this is one of those topics I could write a book about, and held back considerably while crafting this answer. If you’re still in K-12 prison, keep your chin up. I’m rooting for you.