“It’s not the cards you’re dealt. It’s who teaches you how to play them.”

I’ve been learning bridge. And I’ve been failing at it.

It’s not because I’m not trying. I’ve had ten lessons. I’ve studied with the diligence of someone preparing for a master’s exam. I’ve listened to podcasts, watched videos, read the rule sheets over and over and diligently made colour-coded notes. I’ve shown up every single time.

And yet I sit at the table feeling lost, demoralised, and , if I’m honest, occasionally in tears.

Now. I have built a business from the ground up. I have worked across industries, countries, and disciplines. I am not someone who gives up, and I am not someone who fails quietly. So what is happening?

It isn’t me. It’s the teaching.

The two instructors I’ve been learning from are widely recommended by respected institutions, no less. But what I’ve encountered is a style I’d describe as formula delivery: here is the system, here are the rules, apply them. When I ask questions, I sense impatience, as though I should already know this. When I struggle, I’m told, essentially, that not everything can be explained, I will have to work it out. And there’s an overconfidence in their approach that leaves no room for the student who simply learns differently.

I am a reasonably intelligent person. I know this. And yet these lessons have made me feel like I’m not.

That is a profound failure of teaching.

Then I thought about my daughter.

At school, she believed she was terrible at maths. Couldn’t do it. Wasn’t built for it. The subject made her feel small.

Fast forward to now; she’s studying at university, and over IGCSE and IB consistently scored 95% in maths.

Same brain, Different environment, Different approach, Different results.

Nothing changed about her ability. Everything changed about how she was taught.

This is exactly why I started Young Scholarz.

Not because I wanted to offer more lessons. There are plenty of those. Not because I wanted to be cheaper or bigger or shinier. The market has all of that too.

I started YS because I understood from my own experience as a learner, and from watching my students, that intelligence is rarely the variable. Teaching is the variable.

What a student needs isn’t a formula sheet that the teacher believes applies to everyone. What they need is a mentor who is genuinely curious about how this particular mind works. Someone who checks in. Who reads the room? Who notices when a student has gone quiet, not because they’re bored, but because they’re lost. Someone who adjusts, not reluctantly, not with a sigh, but as an instinct.

The best teaching doesn’t deliver content. It ignites something. It makes a student feel capable, often for the first time in a subject they’d written off about themselves.

At Young Scholarz, that’s what we build.

Not just academic results, though those follow. We build the belief that the student can. And we do it by meeting them exactly where they are, not where we assume they should be.

I’ll get there with the bridge. I know I will when I find the right guide.

But the experience has reminded me, viscerally, what it feels like to be on the other side of poor teaching. And it’s renewed every conviction I had when I opened the doors of Young Scholarz.

The difference isn’t the syllabus. It’s the human being doing the teaching.

Young Scholarz is an online education hub based in Singapore, supporting students across IB, A-Levels, and beyond, with a focus not just on grades, but on confidence, critical thinking, and finding each student’s best way in.