Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ralston Medouze. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ralston, appreciate you joining us today. So, let’s start with a hypothetical – what would you change about the educational system?

In order to best serve our students, we need to broaden our perspective of what quality education entails. Over the decades, education has become increasingly more focused on one objective or another: either to get students jobs or, now, get them into a collegiate program. Both of these goals are admirable, as we all want students to be successful and have fulfilling lives, but I often see these objectives boiled down to a singular action item that it becomes almost divorced from the original goal. Do well on this test. Learn to code. Teach STEAM. It seems like we often focus on what to do and less on why we’re doing it. For many, school has become less about the endeavor of learning and more about the string of numbers we use to measure a student’s performance. Supposedly, this is a measurement of how well a student has mastered a concept, but if we ask a student to revisit the problem later or explain the logic behind concept or how to apply the concept to another problem or in practice, they’re lost. As a society, we’ve been teaching towards the tests and have focused less on critical thinking and the mastery behind the material. It’s a much harder goal and it’s more complex to teach how to approach a problem from various angles rather than giving a simple answer, but it’s the kind of thinking that we need to innovate and move forward as a whole.

As we all come to learn, there’s no such thing as a one fits all solution. We need to dare to become more flexible and allocate the resources towards helping students find their individual paths. For some, that may mean attending college for four or more years, achieving degrees and certificates, and going on to become a doctor or lawyer. For many other professions, however, we can streamline the amount of schooling needed and adapt qualifications to what is actually needed for those professions. Many students struggle to think how the material they are learning today practically applies to their lives now and in the future. I get this question all the time, and I’m sure many teachers can relate – “How does this apply to me or why does this matter in the real world?” I believe we should engage students of all ages with more practical training to show them how their studies may apply to their potential professions, challenge them to apply themselves and work with professionals to solve problems in their communities and industries of their choice, and put more emphasis on challenging one’s self more and more as opposed to making the “best” score.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have always been passionate about learning and education. No matter what I did in the past, I would always seek to absorb as much information as I could and would ultimately end up teaching that information to others. When I was in college at Emory University, I was asked by one of my teachers to become a tutor for the class and help my classmates with the difficult material. It was after that experience that I decided to start tutoring as my profession. I worked with students of all ages as a private tutor for the next 5 years, coming to teach over 40 different subjects, ranging from Algebra to Test Prep. In 2016, I started my company, Strive Academics.

At Strive Academics, we provide private, in-home and online tutoring for students of all ages in the core subjects and test prep. Currently, we can work with students in-person around the metro Atlanta area or online anywhere else. At Strive Academics, we’re firm believers that there is no such thing as a one size fits all solution. Each lesson is tailored to our students’ individual needs. Private tutoring is great because it’s a one on one environment that gives students the space to ask the questions they need to understand the material and the time to go at their own pace. After a few sessions of working with one of our tutors, students are much more confident in their abilities and their grasp of the material. To us, the best feeling is when a student becomes excited after finally starting to understand a concept that has eluded them and starts to demonstrate their mastery.

In 2019, Strive Academics also began developing and offering educational resources through our website. Currently, we have a variety of worksheets available in over 16 subjects, ranging from Geometry to Spanish, and are in the process of developing more resources and courses. We even offer some resources for free in a multitude of subjects. These are the perfect fit for those who believe they don’t quite need a tutor yet but are still in need of a guide to help them understand a concept or additional practice material.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Failure is not the end.

Like many high achieving students, I strove to always do the best I could. I was never quite a perfectionist, but after I was motivated to try my hardest, I would give it my all. The thing is, whenever you reach to achieve the toughest goals before you, sometimes you will fall flat on your face. That’s often the case in business. You will try to accomplish something, whether it’s launching a new product, trying to get that new client, or something else. Sometimes, you will fail, and that’s okay. The thing they don’t teach you in school is that things in the real world are both much more difficult and much more flexible that it’s made out to be. You can still be a rock star if you’re right 70% of the time. Heck, if you’re right 50% of the time, you’re probably doing great. There are many things that I have tried to achieve in the past and present that haven’t turned out the way I wanted, but you have to keep moving forward anyway. If you’re afraid to keep going because it’s not your perfect ideal or because you’re afraid of things not working out, you’ll never go anywhere. Sometimes, your idea may seem perfect on paper, but when it’s introduced to the real world and its complexities, things will get messed up. It will happen often, but you have to understand that it won’t be the end, and you can adapt things as you go.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

After college, like many, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do as a career. As I considered my options, I eventually landed a job at a company doing sales. I wasn’t there long, however, as I was swept up in a round of layoffs at the company as it was reorganizing. Unfortunately for me, I had just signed the lease for my apartment the week before. At this point in time, I had been tutoring for a few years, so I had a small clientele and experience in my industry, but it was never the kind of income that could fully support an adult living in Atlanta. I had always been considering turning my tutoring into a full-time business; though, so I decided to take the leap. Rather than going out and seeking employment, I poured all my time into getting clients and setting up my business. It was a struggle, even with some prior business know-how. Even after doing research, acquiring and working with clients on my own previously, I still made mistakes. There was still so much I didn’t know. Thankfully, there are many organizations out there, like SCORE and the Chamber of Commerce that can help fledgling small business owners get their bearings. I made it a point to put myself out there as much as I could. It was my mission to build my network and attend as many events as possible and meet as many people as possible. I built great relationships, and some of those conversations led to business, and some of those conversations led to finding other resources that are now invaluable to my business. It took me a few months to get the company somewhat stable, and it wasn’t until after 1.5 – 2 years of constant work every day that I really started to feel secure with the business.

Things were going well for a while, and then COVID hit. Suddenly, all the things I had relied on before were feeling less certain. Like many businesses, I found the demand for my business being upended. For a while, there was a lot of uncertainty about what the educational expectations would be for the next year or two. Schools were struggling to maintain attendance and help their students while colleges were changing their admissions standards. For a long time, it wasn’t possible for many students to take the ACT or the SAT. With so much up in the air, I had to re-evaluate everything in my business, starting from which costs needed to be cut to how I acquired customers. I made the business as lean as possible to survive. It wasn’t until very recently that things have been starting to return to some semblance normalcy, but COVID gave me the opportunity to diversify my business even more and make it more resilient to the shocks that may come in the future.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.striveacademics.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/striveacademics
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/striveacademics
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/strive-academics
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/striveacademics
• Youtube: www.striveacademics.com/youtube
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/strive-academics-smyrna
• Other: www.striveacademics.com/worksheets