I've grown up well educated in Math. In 1st and 2nd grade, my grandma would give Multiplication Quizes, my parents assigned Kumon Math (which I actually enjoyed back then), and I always got high marks in Math.

Into High School, this got me the opportunity to tutor some of my friend's little brothers in math (who happened to be African American). I was confident in my math skills, and the family would pay me (hurrah, high-school $$$) so I accepted the offer. I can't say that I recall anything different going on, or any particular "racial" bits that I had to watch out for.

This was just a kid who couldn't grasp Multiplication, Perimeters, and other basic Geometry and was failing at it. With a few weeks of tutoring, we got past his mental block and apparently he got an A in the class soon after I helped him. The only bit of advice I can give here is... say "I don't know" and be 100% honest with the student. "I don't know, but give me your textbook. Let me see if I can figure it out first". By showing him how I learned from the textbook, it seemed like the kid picked up and learned how to teach himself.

In fact: "I don't know" was probably the most important thing I ever showed him. Too many students think that Math-wizards know everything without study. But here I am, a straight-A (in Math) student who will proudly say "I don't know" and study 1-on-1 with the kid. This knowledge didn't come for free: I got it from hard work, and if there's lack of practice over the years (a long time since I did 3rd grade or 4th grade math), I get rusty and need to re-study up to get back into the groove.

I don't think he needed more than ~4 tutoring sessions from me. He really started learning on his own after that.

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Perhaps because this African American was literally in my same neighborhood, same high school (well, at least his older brother was), and similar academic culture. But... I didn't see much difference with that.

Now I admit that one-on-one tutoring is very different than classroom-teaching. Classroom teaching is very dreadful: a "competitive Classroom" necessarily makes winners-and-losers, and the losers often feel like its hopeless to make any progress what so ever.

I think that's the real issue with teaching in America: the "winners" and "losers" that is all too often in a competitive classroom environment. And in my experience, those academic losers do tend to be people of color.

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One-on-one instruction completely removes that competitive ladder from the situation however. But that's not really scalable in general. We have classrooms so that one teacher can teach 30 students. If we could actually afford 1-teacher per student, then it isn't a school, its a tutoring session.

I dunno, that's my little bit of experience on this subject. As far as I can tell: its the middle-class / upper-class who can largely afford private tutoring sessions (removing their children from the unhelpful, "competitive" classroom environments).

I may have gotten "A" in my Math subjects. But I got Cs in Chemistry and Biology, and Ds and Fs in English and History. "Competitive" classrooms are incredibly damaging to your psyche: you feel useless in a subject as others in your class pull ahead, and it becomes hopeless to catch up. That's what I learned from my own high school experience.

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Ironically, it felt like College was less competitive for me, and more about the joy of exploring pure academics. There was a competitive element due to grading on a curve, but I was really able to flourish in College when I stopped caring about comparing myself to others. I still got my Cs in various subjects (but never lower than that). I think I finally figured out the proper environment that worked for my psyche by then.