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MOST of us have probably experienced that horrible moment of sitting in a classroom, staring at a seemingly nonsensical set of squiggles on the board in front of us and wondering whether the teacher has suddenly started speaking a foreign language.
Often, these moments of incomprehension will be relatively short-lived, as the teacher will find a way of presenting the formerly baffling concept in a way which makes sense. But, for many people with conditions which lead to learning difficulties or delays, that feeling of being in an alien world will continue.
And, as academic and tutor Peter Fekete explains, such feelings can engender stress and anxiety within the student concerned.
“There are so many conditions, from dyslexia or dyscalculia to attention deficit or autism, which can lead to learning difficulties or delays,” said the founder of Black’s Academy and former head of sixth form at Victoria College. “These are conditions which can leave a child floundering and a parent feeling quite helpless, not knowing how to help their child to overcome the learning difficulties they are experiencing.
“Unfortunately, as that child sees their fellow pupils pick up all the concepts which are so baffling to them, they can become embarrassed and experience even greater stress and anxiety, which further reduces their ability to absorb information.”
Having recognised this difficulty, Mr Fekete – who also offers tuition and revision services across subjects including English, maths, physics and chemistry – embarked on a mission to develop “a unique teaching methodology”.
“I have created a system which has led to some key breakthroughs,” he said. “I am quite overwhelmed by what some of the students have achieved. I am proud that there has been no educational problem presented to me to date that I have not been able to redress. Of course, what I can say about this is constrained, since the identities of students must be safeguarded, and this makes the presentation of case studies difficult. Some of these have involved extreme learning delays and anxiety disorders. The work is all ongoing.
“When parents introduce their child to me, they often think that any real progress will be impossible and yet, they often see a difference in their child after the first lesson,” he added. “Key to this is finding what one client calls the ‘sweet spot’. I have to identify the exact stage the student is at and then deliver the lesson in a way that means they ‘get it’. As soon as you take them to that place, they experience immense relief and, with the stress alleviated, you take them to a place where they are able to learn.”
With many children experiencing particular difficulties with maths, Mr Fekete says his system – which sounds simple despite the 100,000-plus lines of code which he had to develop to bring it to fruition – is based on some simple principles.
“You start by finding the sweet spot. You teach mental arithmetic and you combine your approach with several different resources,” he explained. “These include visual training techniques such as jigsaw puzzles, as well as games, workouts and multiple-choice questions. The diversity brings mathematical processes to life.
“I am working on a theory that the visual approach is the key to stress reduction, as it is the left hemisphere of the brain which triggers anxiety and also responds to verbal stimuli.
“The right hemisphere responds to visual material, so if the teaching methods stimulate the right hemisphere of the brain, you avoid triggering the stress. As a result, pupils’ confidence and self-esteem grows, and they also learn the process of problem-solving, and see how, from a point of confusion, you can unjumble the pieces to solve the problem.
“Furthermore, all students, even the most able, prefer and request these exercises.”
While confident that his methods are “three or five times faster than normal teaching”, he says that the only limit to how far someone progresses “is the student’s willingness to persist and the parents’ willingness to support them”.
And it is not only Mr Fekete who is confident in the results of his programme. As the parent of one of his students wrote: “Black’s Academy has taught my dyslexic son, in 15 hours, more than he learnt in an entire year of sitting in a classroom at school…. My son described Peter’s teaching as ‘the ultimate life-hacking system for maths’ and what had felt impossible was unlocked for him and became simple.”
