Stop memorizing. Start thinking.

In thirty years of teaching, I have never once asked a student to memorize anything.

I was born in Hong Kong and came to America at thirteen. Three years later I was standing in a science museum in Jacksonville, explaining physics and animal behavior to whoever wandered in, and I discovered what I still believe: a person who understands why never needs to be told what. At New College of Florida I finished a chemistry degree in the top ten percent of my class, ran three weekly sessions for organic chemistry students as a teaching assistant, and spent the rest of my time in a research lab pulling sulfur out of gasoline with an NMR and a GCMS.

Since then I have lived and taught in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Guatemala, and the Bahamas, trained the mathematics and science faculty of a charter school to teach by questioning rather than lecturing, provided academic support for Duval County Public Schools, and tutored more than two thousand students across Florida, Puerto Rico, and online. I am fluent in English, Mandarin, and Cantonese, and conversant in French and Spanish. Physics, chemistry, and mathematics are not three subjects to me. They are three dialects of one language, and I teach it at every level, from a pre-algebra class to graduate level coursework.

My ultimate goal is to make myself obsolete: to build a student's mind, and their joy in learning, to the point where they no longer need me.

Igniting a passion for learning and new discoveries.

Modern schooling rewards rote learning: memorize, recite, forget. Across three decades of tutoring, educational consulting, teacher training, and curriculum advising, my work has been the opposite. I want students to ask intelligent questions and to think carefully about the world around them.

Mathematics and science are not collections of facts to be memorized. They reveal the very structure and order of creation. So I teach by the Socratic method, answering questions with questions until a student refines the inquiry and arrives at the truth on their own.

The common thread in everything I do, from tutoring to interpreting to surf camps, is education through compassion: building relationships with students that allow them to thrive academically and grow in character.

Most tutoring is a faster way to memorize. Mine is the opposite. I answer questions with questions, then wait in silence, until the student arrives at the principle on their own. Once you have derived something yourself you cannot forget it, and you can rebuild it under pressure on any exam, in any course, for the rest of your life.

Three disciplines, every level, and any exam that stands in the way.

High school, college, and graduate coursework. If a student needs help with a subject or class not listed here, ask. The method transfers to anything with a logic behind it.

A grade is a side effect. Understanding is the point.

Thirty years of students who arrived struggling and left at the top of their class.

Across high school, college, and graduate coursework, the pattern repeats: a student comes in memorizing and afraid of the subject, and leaves reasoning, confident, and often in love with it. Many have gone on to MIT, Yale, Harvard, and UC Berkeley. Several have graduated at the top of their department in the very subject they once feared.

Clear rates. Clear terms.

Sessions are held online over Zoom, one-on-one or in small groups. Every engagement begins with a signed Private Tutoring Agreement, so both of us know exactly what to expect.

Tell my assistant where the subject stopped making sense.

My assistant knows what I teach, how I work, and when I am available. It will ask about the course, the exam, and what is not clicking, take your name, email, and phone number, and find a time. Then you sign the agreement and place a deposit, and the session is yours. Anything it cannot answer comes to me.