Meet Vanessa Flora-Nakoski

I believe that the purpose of education is to develop the natural abilities of students to prepare them for the challenges and opportunities they will encounter in life. Since students’ natural abilities vary, so must their education. For this reason, I strongly believe that one-on-one or small group tutoring must be the cornerstone of any effective learning program. When tutoring, I identify the unique nature of the student’s needs and meet those needs through research-based, current techniques that foster academic confidence, growth, and success.

As a tutor, I take on many roles: coach, mentor, role model, and audience. I believe that writers succeed when they understand how to connect with their readers, and as a tutor, it is my responsibility to help them learn how various readers might react to various rhetorical and mechanical strategies. Like an improvisational actor, my response to a student will always take what they offer and push the idea further. While I always begin the tutoring session with an anticipated outcome, the diversity of student backgrounds, ideas, learning styles, and personalities require me to respond deftly and with innovation.

I believe that each student is a young scholar, brimming with the potential to change the world, or at least my perceptions of it. Therefore, I judge each student idea or question on its own merits, recognizing that even students who take stances I disagree with might learn to make compelling arguments. No matter where their abilities take them, I will help them make the journey.