Teacher on Wheels is a mobile K-12 tutoring service which fosters academic excellence & personal development using a humanistic approach. We strive to empower today's youth to be intrinsically motivated & growth-oriented by equipping our students with the knowledge, skills, & confidence for a lifetime of learning.
About the Founder
Hanh is a Vietnamese-American and now Canadian living in Vancouver, BC. Her first career as a Montessori elementary teacher eventually blossomed into Teacher on Wheels, Vancouver’s first and only K-12 Montessori tutoring service. She started off tutoring Math, Science, and English to secondary students and started to notice a mysterious pattern in the students who were drawn to her approach. These students were very bright and capable, but for some reason were not able to perform well in school. Hanh's curiosity and desire to seek the truth led her to pursue a Master's Degree in Counselling Psychology, specializing in School Counselling. She has since created a unique service called Therapeutic Tutoring, using therapeutic interventions to discover and remove social and emotional blocks related to learning so that her students can thrive at school and beyond. In her free time, Hanh loves to dance lindy hop and balboa, sing Ed Sheeran songs, learn French, visit Disney theme parks, and explore the world on cruises with her hubby.
Introducing…
Tutoring + Therapy =
Therapeutic Tutoring
with Hanh My Sapsai, M.Ed.,
Registered Clinical Counsellor
I help students work through social and emotional challenges as they arise in the moment.
At the outset, James said to me that he needed to write 3 more paragraphs of his paper by tomorrow, but he is having a block. We sat down to take a look at what needed to be done. After writing the first few words of the summary, he stopped suddenly. "I'm having a block," he said. I asked if it was alright for us to take a step back from the computer and do a little visualization exercise to explore what is behind the block. "I would really rather just get it done and over with, I need to get this done!" "I can see that this is really important to you. At the same time, how can we move forward if there is something in the way? Why don't we step away just for 2 minutes, then we can come back to it right away."
And so we did. I asked him to visualize the block in front of him, a wall, and invited him to describe what it looks like. "How tall is it? Is it thick? Can you break through it or walk around it?" When I saw him get distracted, I said, "Stay with me here, this is really important." I asked him what was the wall saying to him. "Well it's just that the feedback I got was that my citations are inconsistent and then I thought to myself I suck at this. And then I have no motivation." "Oh wow, that sounds really hard. If someone told me I sucked, I would lose motivation, too," I said.
"Is that true, though? Just because your citations are not consistent, it doesn't mean your paper sucks. Your teacher even said how great your ideas were and not to worry about the citations." He went on to explain why he thought citations were useless and not worth his time, and I validated his perspective. I provided an anecdote about my time in graduate school and how I despised citations.
Then, I noticed a shift in his energy. "How does the block look now, more manageable?" "Yep." And he continued on to complete the entire summary within just a few minutes.
***Names have been changed to protect the privacy of the student***
At the intersection of education and psychology is where we can find the greatest potential for growth.
Miles was working on skip counting by 2 backwards from 100. He was able to do it, but would get stuck every now and then. So we decided to try timing the process to see if it would help. The previous week, we had about 4 runs and I recorded the time each time, 1:20, 1:03, 1:00 and finally 0:48. This time around, we did the same thing: 0:55, 0:52....When I suggested trying again to see if it would be faster, he hesitated.
He asked, "Why is it so important to be able to skip count backwards by 2 quickly?" I said that being able to do something quickly demonstrates mastery. Learning how to perform under time pressure is an important skill to learn, and we talked a bit about real-life examples of this. But Miles was insistent; he countered by saying that he was already fast in other areas of his life. "Some things come easy, and others not so much. Those skills can be good to practice so we can get better at them." He seemed to understand, but I still sensed resistance. What was I missing?
Perhaps the intellectual reasoning was not enough. No matter how much my explanations made sense to me, he wasn’t able to hear the message I was trying to convey because his brain was in fight or flight mode. I realized I needed to connect more with the feeling. "I wonder if you might be feeling discouraged?" I said. He nodded and I made space, then his energy shifted.
We reviewed his past performance times and I pointed out that his first time was already faster than his first time just a week ago. "What do you think might happen if we try again? Could it be possible that you might beat your fastest time?" He was doubtful, so I met him halfway. "If you try again, it could get worse, stay the same or even improve. If it's better, that's great! If not, we can always try again. It's not always about getting it right or even doing well all the time. You're trying your best, and that's what matters the most." Miles let out a big sigh and mustered up the strength to try again. Low and behold...he beat his record! 41 seconds :)
***Names have been changed to protect the privacy of the student***