When the Teacher Feels Like the Problem: How Students Can Take Back Control
I have a student I have been working with for quite a while. When we first started, he was absolutely convinced he was “just bad at math.” He felt stuck, defeated, and pretty sure that no amount of effort would change that.
Over time, that story has changed completely. As he put in the work, asked questions, and let himself try again even when it felt discouraging, he began to see what I already saw: he is fully capable of understanding math when he has the right tools and support. At this point he actually enjoys it, which is one of my favorite transformations to watch as a tutor.
This past semester, though, we ran into a very different challenge. The biggest obstacle was not the material. It was the way the material was being taught.
That is the heart of this story, and the message I want to share with students and parents: even when the teaching is poor or inconsistent, your student is not powerless. There is still a lot they can control, and learning how to do that is a major life skill.
When the Classroom Becomes the Challenge
From everything my student has described, his math class this year has been frustrating. Not because his teacher is a terrible person, but because many of her choices simply do not support how students actually learn.
One of the clearest examples happened during their unit on quadratics. With me, he had worked hard on factoring and completing the square. He was making real progress and starting to feel proud of himself.
Then test day arrived.
What he did not realize, and what his teacher seemed to forget, was that the test included several problems involving the quadratic formula. She had never taught it. Not once.
A more student-centered response would have been to remove those questions or delay the test, teach the quadratic formula properly, and then assess it later. Instead, right before the test, she quickly wrote the quadratic formula on the board for the first time and said something like, “Use this to solve these problems.”
For many students in that room, this was their first exposure to one of the most important tools in Algebra. No practice, no examples, no time to understand what any of the pieces meant. Just “Here it is, now use it on the test.”
My student understandably felt blindsided. He had put in hours of work, only to be tested on something he had never been given a fair chance to learn.
On top of that, there were other structural issues that made learning harder.
His homework is all online. The platform itself is excellent and allows students to generate new variations of practice problems, which is one of his favorite ways to study. Unfortunately, his teacher had set it up so that once an assignment is completed, it locks. He cannot go back to review the questions or create new versions for extra practice. From a learning perspective, that is the opposite of what you want. Students need repeated, low-pressure practice and the ability to revisit old problems.
Then there is the testing policy. Once a test is graded, students are not allowed to see it again. They cannot review the questions they missed, they cannot see what went wrong, and they cannot ask targeted questions to fix those gaps. That not only limits learning in the present, it also makes it much harder to prepare for finals or standardized exams where those concepts will return.
You can probably imagine how frustrated he felt. He saw the unfairness clearly, and in many ways he was right to be upset.
You Cannot Control Your Teacher, But You Can Control Your Response
As a tutor, I agreed with many of his concerns. At the same time, I knew I could not simply join him in venting. My job is to help him move from “This is unfair” to “Given that this is the situation, what can I do now.”
This is a skill I want all my students to internalize: you cannot control your teacher, but you can control how you respond.
The first thing I told him was very simple. He does not have the power to make his teacher suddenly become a different person or reverse every policy. What he does have is the ability to advocate for himself clearly and respectfully.
So we practiced that.
Together, we drafted an email that explained what he was experiencing and what he was asking for. The tone was calm, specific, and kind. No accusing language, no name-calling, just a student saying, “Here is how this is affecting my learning, and here is what would help.”
He was nervous to send it. He expected to be ignored or dismissed.
Instead, something surprising happened.
His teacher actually listened. When he approached her respectfully and described what he needed, she was willing to reopen certain online assignments so he could keep practicing. That one small change gave him back a powerful study tool and showed him that self-advocacy is not just a buzzword. It can lead to real results.
We tried a similar approach about the quadratic formula situation. In that case she seemed much less willing to make changes, likely because it touched on a sensitive area and may have felt embarrassing. As I reminded him, though, that reaction is still outside of his control. We can ask and hope for a better outcome. We cannot force one.
Once we had done what we could on the communication side, it was time for the next question.
Given that this teacher sometimes throws surprises and does not always create ideal learning conditions, how do we adapt?
Turning Curveballs Into a Game Plan
Once we accepted that the class was going to be unpredictable, we decided to use that information to get ahead instead of staying stuck in frustration.
Here is what that looked like in practice.
We started reading ahead in the textbook before new units began, so we were not seeing ideas for the first time in class. We looked at the big picture of Algebra, not only the narrow slice covered in a particular homework set. We used our sessions to learn major concepts deeply, especially the ones that are almost guaranteed to appear again on future tests and exams.
We also recreated the kind of problems he might see on tests, since he could not review his actual tests. That meant practice questions, mixed-topic review, and honest conversations about what still felt shaky and why.
The goal was not to pretend that the situation was suddenly fair. It was to make sure he was not stuck in a place of helplessness.
The more he prepared in this way, the more his posture shifted. He still did not love the way the course was run, but he no longer felt like a victim of it. He had tools, strategies, and a plan.
The Deeper Lesson: Learning, Advocacy, and Life After This Class
Of course, part of my role is to help him understand the math itself. Factoring, completing the square, the quadratic formula, and all of the other building blocks of Algebra are important. They matter for future courses, test scores, and confidence.
But what has impressed me most this year is something deeper. He has been learning how to learn in less than ideal circumstances. He has been learning how to communicate with an authority figure, even when he feels frustrated. He has been learning to separate “This teacher is not teaching in a way that works for me” from “I am bad at math.”
That distinction is huge.
In college and in his career, he will absolutely encounter professors, managers, or systems that feel unfair or disorganized. If he can walk into those situations with the skills he has been developing this year, he will be much better prepared. He will know how to ask for what he needs, how to supplement what is missing, and how to keep moving forward even when the conditions are not ideal.
If your student is in a similar situation, I want you to know this. A difficult teacher does not have the final say on your child’s potential in math or any other subject. With the right support, extra practice, and some coaching around self-advocacy, students can still grow, still succeed, and in the process, often become more resilient than they would have been with an easier teacher.
If you would like your student to have this kind of one-on-one academic and mindset support, you can learn more or schedule a session at PurposeTutoring.com/book. I would be glad to help them rebuild confidence, master the material, and practice the real-life skills that go far beyond one semester of math.
