By the time I was 11, I had already lived in five different countries. By 13, I had quietly fallen behind in mathematics and failed my end-of-year exam.
It wasn’t for lack of intelligence. It wasn’t even for lack of effort. I was just lost in a cycle of constant school transitions, new languages, and new syllabi. One day I was learning maths in Kenya, and a few months later, I was expected to pick up where another system had left off in India.
By then, I had attended schools in Yemen, Libya, Kenya, India, and the UK. Each change pulled the rug from under my feet a little more. And in maths, a subject that builds on itself, well the cracks had begun to show.
Failing Mathematics and What My Father Did Next
My father, a former mathematics tutor turned Junior Indian diplomat, was stunned when he saw my report card. He had tutored in India for several years and did not believe his eldest child had failed. Quietly. Completely. It wasn’t just a bad grade, it was a warning sign. Something had gone missing in my foundation. In part he felt guilty and responsible for this drift.
And so began one of the most formative summer months of my life.
While my siblings slept through summer, I was up at dawn. My dad tutored me one-on-one, every morning, relentlessly but patiently. We didn’t “catch up” on mathematics, we rebuilt it from the ground up. We didn’t race ahead, we stopped, slowed down, and retrained my mathematical brain. In fact, some pedagogy I learnt from his teaching, I still use today in my own tutoring.
By the end of the summer, I retook the exam and passed with flying colours. But more importantly, I never struggled with mathematics again. The foundation had been laid. The confidence was real. The love of mathematics had now been instilled at a deep level.
From Nomadic Childhood to Global Online Tutor
Looking back now, I realise that experience shaped everything I do today. I grew up across cultures, systems, and continents. I know what it’s like to feel behind. I know the anxiety that builds in students when the gaps keep widening.
Today, as a specialist online tutor, I work with children around the world, some of them relocating like I once did, some of them homeschooled, and many of them quietly struggling with maths anxiety or Dyscalculia.
And for all of them, I offer not just maths tuition but stability, presence, and a long-term approach that heals the damage school transitions often cause.
I become the one consistent figure in their mathematics journey, wherever they are. I am online and I can move to wherever they move to.
Why This Matters
Too often, children who “fail” mathematics early simply give up. The label sticks. The confidence disappears. But most of the time, it is not the child’s fault, it is the system. Or the pace. Or the fact that no one ever went back to rebuild what was missing.
I was lucky. I had my dad. Most children don’t.
Though my father is no longer alive, one of the most important gifts he could have ever given me was the love of mathematics and an ethic to work relentlessly. Thank you dad.