Christopher S.

Having grown up in the northeastern United States, I first came to southern California to pursue my bachelor’s degree in physics at Harvey Mudd College. When I’m not tutoring, I enjoy playing basketball, hiking, surfing, writing poetry, and international travel. Highlights include summiting Mt. Kilimanjaro, hiking the Inca Trail to Macchu Pichu, visiting Angkor Wat, camping on the Serengeti, and surfing the sunny shores of Rio di Janeiro when I visited Brazil to attend the 2014 World Cup.

As a 14 year veteran of public, charter, and private school teaching, I bring a wealth and range of experience working with students of various ages, ethnicities, learning styles, and socio-economic backgrounds. During a recent 2–year stint as an AP Physics teacher in the Torrance Unified School District, I helped my students to achieve a pass rate above 75%, with over half of my students earning a 4 or 5 on the AP exam. In addition to classroom teaching, I have 5+ years experience as a test prep and private academic tutor, and in that context I have helped numerous clients increase their scores by hundreds of points on the SAT and commensurate improvement on the ACT.

I find that the key to unlocking each student’s potential is not so much adherence to a “method” as it is about determining what uniquely motivates each student and building on that motivation in a way that allows each student to taste success early on in the tutoring process. Once a student has tasted authentic success, they typically are willing to commit to the methods that I model and the practice I assign them. Approach students socratically as much as possible, I use questioning to elicit their prior knowledge and leverage their own experience to engage them in relatable conversation. As a result of my natural, low-key style of building rapport, my students tend to feel very comfortable asking crucial, clarifying questions that lead to true conceptual breakthroughs and greater retention, which typically translate into a an appreciable improvement in scores and/or academic performance.