A sudden pandemic made online classrooms unusually lively.

On social platforms, people joke about teachers becoming online broadcasters; on short video platforms, the public mimics the teaching scenes of online class teachers; in their social circles, everyone marvels at the difficulties of online class teachers...

However, few people realize that behind the online class screen, there is a group of people who silently support everything without ever being in the spotlight.

They are the tutor teachers.

Tutor teachers first appeared in 2016, coinciding with the rapid development of K12 class live streaming.

This year, tutor teachers officially gained official recognition, being defined in the document “Announcement on Publicizing New Occupations” published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, as individuals who use digital learning platforms (tools) to provide learners with personalized, precise, timely, and effective learning planning, learning guidance, support services, and evaluation feedback.

Before each class, she would refine the lesson together with the main teacher.

Guo Xia Wei never thought that one day, she could hold a "fan meet-up".

Guo Xia Wei's "Fan Meet-up"

Guo Xia Wei is a tutor teacher for Xueersi Peiyou online courses under TAL Education Group and has been in this profession for over three years.

Every Tuesday evening at 6:00, she sits in front of the computer screen on time, opens the camera on her computer, enters the live broadcast room, and begins the most important task of the day - following the class.

Full of energy, Guo Xia Wei greets the children who enter the broadcast room successively. When the number of participants is nearly full, she starts to lead the children to review the content of the previous class and preview the knowledge points of the current class.

Half an hour later, the class officially starts, and Guo Xia Wei skillfully switches the screen to the main teacher's interface. When the main teacher appears on the screen, Guo Xia Wei starts to pay attention to the learning status of each child and keeps an eye on the teaching content of the main teacher.

Although the teaching is completed by the main teacher, Guo Xia Wei’s role is very important.

Guo Xia Wei's work consists of four parts: pre-class live broadcast to guide children quickly into learning state; following the class to ensure children's learning effect during the class; correcting homework after class to identify children's learning problems; and providing timely feedback daily to reassure parents. To do a good job as a tutor teacher is not easy, attention to detail, patience, love, and responsibility are indispensable.

To solve children's learning problems in time, Guo Xia Wei applies to refine lessons and prepare lessons with the main teacher before each class. Initially, it was to quickly adapt to the work of a tutor teacher, but later on, she felt it was her duty to help improve children's learning abilities along with the main teacher.

Although it took a lot of her time, the results eventually showed. Whenever children privately inquired about knowledge points and difficult problems they didn’t understand, she could almost always help them solve them.

Because of this, both the children and parents trusted her more and more. After the first course ended, both parents and children were willing to continue learning with Guo Xia Wei.

In the spring of 2019, Guo Xia Wei won the annual achievement customer award of Xueersi Peiyou and went to the Beijing headquarters to receive the award. Before heading out, she happily posted a message in her social circle. When the children learned that the teacher Xia Wei on the other end of the screen was coming to Beijing, they all clamored to meet her. As a result, the main teacher at that time and she organized a meet-up session impromptu.

On the day of the meet-up, as soon as Guo Xia Wei walked into the classroom, parents and children applauded and took photos of her, surrounding her like fans. At that moment, she felt “so happy”.

"I finished reading this article with a smile"

Like Guo Xia Wei, Wang Xin is also a tutor teacher of Xueersi Peiyou. Wang Xin is a soft-hearted and delicate girl who often asks herself, "Are you happy?" Before becoming a tutor teacher, her answer was always vague.

Now, she no longer asks herself this question because she often feels joy from the bottom of her heart, stemming from the sense of achievement and pride brought by this profession.

Wang Xin has not been a tutor teacher for long, less than a year. Last year, after graduating from school, she joined Xueersi Peiyou through campus recruitment and became an online course tutor teacher. With the help of the team and the main teacher, Wang Xin quickly adapted to the work rhythm of a tutor teacher.

Whenever she enters the live broadcast room, hearing the children's tender voices greeting her, she can't help but smile. The children's growth has further strengthened her determination to do this job well.

Teacher Xin Xin at work

Hong Hong (a pseudonym) is a child in the Chinese class that Wang Xin is in charge of. He is a quiet little boy, never late or leaving early, but very averse to writing essays. Wang Xin still remembers the situation when she first received Hong Hong's essay.

The essay required more than 350 words and psychological descriptions. However, the essay submitted by Hong Hong had no title, only one paragraph, with incoherent sentences, mostly composed in pinyin, and even went off-topic. This left Wang Xin feeling overwhelmed, not knowing how to correct it initially.

At this time, Hong Hong's mother found Wang Xin and wanted teacher Xin Xin to plan an "essay clock-in activity” for Hong Hong. As long as Hong Hong clocks in for 15 times and submits 15 essays within a month, he can get a Transformer.

Transformers were Hong Hong’s favorite toys. Upon hearing this, Wang Xin immediately agreed. After finishing work that day, she quickly searched for various Transformer pictures and stayed up late designing a poster. The next morning, Wang Xin sent the activity poster to the child and parents.

Sure enough, the carefully designed poster attracted Hong Hong's attention. Without doubting the authenticity of the activity, he participated without hesitation. Subsequently, Hong Hong submitted an essay to Wang Xin every two days. Wang Xin carefully reviewed them, mainly encouraging, pointing out the strengths in the child's essay, proposing areas for improvement, attaching an overall evaluation, and providing excellent essays as references.

As a result, Hong Hong improved his essay writing skills. In a recent essay describing an object, Hong Hong even learned to use personification. He described the sensitive plant by saying “When I touched it, it lowered its head like a shy little girl and folded its leaves together as if guarding some little secret in its heart.”

The child's progress excited Wang Xin immensely, “I finished reading this article with a smile.” What delighted Wang Xin even more was that the child's Chinese performance continued to improve. “In the 13th lecture’s in-class comprehension practice, Hong Hong got all the questions right.”

Every bit of the child's progress could make Wang Xin happy for a whole day. The longer she stayed with the children, the calmer she felt inside, unlike before when she was emotional. Her friends said she has changed, becoming more cheerful.

Although the work of a tutor teacher involves many tasks, Wang Xin is very satisfied, "because the gains far outweigh the efforts." Besides the sense of pride and achievement brought by the children's real progress, the children's reliance and concern also moved Wang Xin greatly.

“They would say, ‘Thank you, teacher Xin Xin. Teacher Xin Xin, I came first this time.’” “They would also compliment me, ‘Teacher Xin Xin looks pretty today.’ ‘The parents are also very willing to share some interesting things about their child's life with me.’ While saying these, Wang Xin's voice was light and delightful, mixed with a bit of laughter.

"Teacher, I'm so sad. Mom doesn't love me, she only loves my sister."

At Xueersi Peiyou, tutor teachers are not only good teachers in the study for their children but also good friends in life. Whether encountering problems in their studies or life, happy or sad, children want to share their little hearts with teachers first at any moment.

One afternoon last winter, Cai Jia Wen was busy organizing the children's learning data when suddenly WeChat notification sounded. "Teacher Cai, I'm so sad. Mom doesn't love me, she only loves my sister." This message was from Fei Fei (a pseudonym), a sixth-grade girl in his class.

Cai Jia Wen joined Xueersi Peiyou to mentor the students in the Shenzhen area right after graduating from university. Parents and children affectionately call him "Teacher A Cai."

That day, Fei Fei was not performing well during the class; she looked absent-minded, was not interacting with the teacher or completing the in-class assignments. After the class, teacher A Cai took the initiative to communicate with Fei Fei about her learning situation. This is a common practice for A Cai. Whenever he observes that a child is not performing well in class, he will take the initiative to understand the specifics privately.

A Cai always believed, “If I don’t help the child make progress, the child will lose not only money but also opportunity cost and time cost.” But Fei Fei didn't respond to him. It took a long time before she finally sent such a message.

Teacher Cai Jia Wen marking homework

Seeing the message, A Cai was “stunned.” He didn't rush to reply to Fei Fei nor feedback this situation directly to parents. Because he didn't know how to handle such emotional issues of the little girl, more importantly, he worried that if he directly communicated this to the parents, any misunderstanding might cause the child secondary harm.

After careful consideration, A Cai decided to set aside his current work and first ask the child for specific details. “I exhausted my patience to listen and comfort Fei Fei’s heart, cautiously, afraid of hurting her already sensitive and fragile wound with any wrong word.”

After communicating, A Cai learned that Fei Fei's sister was too small; the parents' attention was more on the younger sister, somewhat neglecting Fei Fei. So A Cai carefully crafted his words, “afraid that any word might exacerbate family conflicts or even cause the child to be reprimanded again,” and cautiously sent Fei Fei's mother a voice message.

That night, Fei Fei's mother only replied with a brief "Thank you." A Cai felt a bit discouraged, thinking he might have overstepped. Unexpectedly, the next day, the parent sent another message, "Thank you, Teacher."

A Cai was stunned for a while because it was the first time that the parent used the word "您" (a polite form of "you").

The German philosopher Jaspers once said, "The essence of education means that one tree shakes another, one cloud pushes another cloud, one soul awakens another soul."

At Xueersi Peiyou, this group of young tutor teachers and main teachers work together, practicing this phrase with concrete actions: Main teachers are responsible for students' classroom learning, and they are responsible for students' pre-class and post-class practice, online Q&A tutoring, supplementary instruction of classroom knowledge points; Main teachers are responsible for teaching, imparting knowledge; they are responsible for educating, connecting emotions.