Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Benton.
Hi Daniel, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I got started awhile back, in the tenth grade, even though I had been (nonprofessionally) been helping out my friends for years. The impetus for this was one of my teachers (for AP Statistics, and later, calculus as well) being rather busy chairing the math department and running the school chapter of National Honor Society during the end of the year. When it came time to prepare for the AP exam, she was working as well on other things, and so she asked me if I would step up and teach the class review for a week or two, going over the practice exams we’d taken. I went over them, question by question and bit by bit, and in the end 93% of the class passed the AP exam, with over 60% getting a 5, the highest score possible. I do not by any means take credit for this, seeing as the teacher herself was exceptional in preparing us, but it did give me the confidence I needed to take my talent for teaching others to the professional level. I set up a free, accessible peer to peer tutoring system at my school while simultaneously developing my own business. I got certified and began to take on clients, developing a clientele in St. Johns and Duval counties, being recommended by my teachers and those whom I serviced. Since then, I’ve had a major change to my business model with my move to Baltimore and going to college. I now tutor virtually through Zoom, and while it has been an adjustment, I am confident in my ability to help others across the States.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The road hasn’t been entirely smooth. Every student I help brings their own challenge to me, that said, helping some is easier than others. Some of my students come to me with learning disabilities or are not neurotypical, and I have to find a system of teaching them that works for them. The way I teach is although rigorous not rigid, and adaptation is the hardest part. Other challenges have been migrating to virtual tutoring for my students while in college and managing my increasingly busy schedule with schoolwork and my tutoring.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I tutor every major subject area at a high school and early collegiate level as well as standardized testing preparation. I enjoy teaching physics, calculus, and statistics most, but excel with teaching English and the sciences immensely. People at school knew me for a combination of amicability and academic ability, but in terms of my tutoring, I would say I am known for my patience and ability to adapt my teaching style when one way of instruction simply isn’t working. I am proud of the way I can break things down and make wholes into understandable parts, then connect them into a greater framework that in time will change the way in which my student will process the subject at hand. I make my service distinct in that a lot of tutoring, test prep, early learning services focus on repeatedly tackling problem types until what to do is memorized, whereas I emphasize learning the skill of “figuring it out” and piecing together different concepts into a cohesive system to allow for greater and more complex problems to be solved.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
Nothing in particular 🙂
Pricing:
- Standardized Test Prep: $90/2hr session
- Normal Session: $35/45min session
Contact Info:
- Website: https://bentontutoring.com/
