Tag: tutoring

Posted on

The Ultimate Tutoring Question: Tutoring Company vs Private Tutor

While summer is a time of relaxation and a departure from the grind of the school year, some parents and high school students are looking ahead to applying to colleges and one of the key components of the college application process is taking the [easyazon_link identifier=”1119508061″ locale=”US” tag=”evanstutoring-20″]ACT[/easyazon_link] and/or [easyazon_link identifier=”1457309289″ locale=”US” tag=”evanstutoring-20″]SAT[/easyazon_link]. Either test sounds daunting so most look for a tutor to help. (Of course, this situation can also apply to any school year difficulty.) However, how do you know you’re finding the best tutor?

Some flock to a tutoring company who send you a tutor while others look for an unaffiliated private tutor. Which is the better way to go? As someone who started by working for tutoring companies and then tutoring independently, here are the pros and cons (not just for parents, but also aspiring tutors):



TUTORING COMPANY

~~PROS~~

The greatest advantage of a tutoring company is that they have already vetted the tutor you are assigned. You could have been assigned anyone from a big pool of tutors, and they thought this tutor would bring chemistry due to their academic strengths or overall personality.

Companies also have a plan in place and a track record. Some companies produce their own study manuals and core curriculum, which shows organization.

Another thing a company can bring is variety. Say you do not like the tutor you are assigned, you always have recourse with the company and can get a replacement tutor, maybe even get a free lesson. They also have a support staff to handle any other issues.

~~CONS~~

A tutoring company can have its own philosophy and may dictate how lessons are supposed to go. If that does not fit how your child learns then you can hit a dead end.

One of the biggest cons about tutoring companies can be the price and non-corresponding quality of the tutor. You may be thinking, “I paid $80/hour for this lesson. My tutor is going to be great!” Well, your tutor may only be making $25 of that as the difference goes towards staff and other maintenance costs. So now you have to ask, “Do I want a $25 tutor or an $80 tutor?” “Do I want to pay $200 an hour for a tutor that may only be worth $40?”

Earlier in my career I was working at a company where only a fraction of the money the family was paying was going towards the tutor. Perhaps I did not value my ability, perhaps I wanted to get more experience first, but it always felt like, even though I knew I was doing a great job, the family was overpaying.



WHAT ABOUT A PRIVATE TUTOR?

PROS

The great thing about finding a private tutor is that you will get what you pay. For example, I do a lot of tutoring on Wyzant. In the beginning when I had little experience I started at $40/hour. (Keep in mind that Wyzant is similar to a company that does have a support staff and takes 20-40% of the tutor’s wage.) But when you look up tutors on that website you see the great ones are the more expensive ones.

Another pro of a private tutor is that you deal directly with them. You don’t have to schedule or voice concerns through office staff. You can go right to the source. And the tutor can adjust on the spot.

CONS

Usually tutors come with a track record. You should be able to be able to track down testimonials or past references. However, when you go off blind faith sometimes the tutoring can fall flat and you are back at square one. There is no corporate framework behind the tutor, but sometimes the tutor can develop their own materials. You have to trust that the private tutor will get results.

(Subtext – Evan will get you results!)

Posted on

ADHD: A Tutor’s Perspective

The ADD/ADHD Diagnosis And What It Means To Your Child’s Education

Let me start by saying I am not a medical professional nor am I being paid to endorse any product or service. What I am going to give you is my unbiased viewpoint from observing and tutoring hundreds of students one-on-one.

Growing up in a public high school in the 1990s, while at times was stressful and competitive, was at the same time simple. You went to class, you went home and you studied. Some stuff you didn’t understand so you just memorized it, but that was the pattern. You then took the test, remembered what you could and immediately after the test you would forget everything. Yes, there were students who had speech or learning disabilities, but a vast majority of my classmates were really just… kids.

In the 2000s, it seemed that the ADHD “boom” came from doctors and psychiatrists looking at why students struggled with their schoolwork and why they experienced one, or several, of a checklist of study manifestations. (On my ‘how to study‘ page, I mention what causes those manifestations.)

The conclusion was a student’s lack of comprehension had something to do with the brain and that there was a chemical imbalance. Here’s the kicker though: the National Institute of Health says there is no such thing.

“We do not have an independent, valid test for ADHD, and there is no data to indicate that ADHD is due to a brain malfunction.”— National Institute of Health (NIH) Consensus Statement

If students had trouble remembering what they read or got headaches or felt tired then that led to the ADD/ADHD label. All of a sudden there was a laundry list of behaviors that could place someone under that umbrella. But from my perspective there’s nothing ‘disorder’ about having trouble understanding something that is difficult. If I’m passing out in science class, it’s not because of ADHD, it’s because something happened in that lesson that caused my behavior.

And what has been the solution? Medication, more specifically Ritalin, Adderall and endless other psychotropic drugs that are really amphetamines with dangerous side effects. You did not have an Adderall deficiency so why would you take that drug. Sleep, nutrition and exercise are just a few of things that can counter ADHD symptoms.

In my over 3000 hours of tutoring, in almost every instance of seeing a student not understanding, I never thought, “Oh, this is an ADHD student.” What I observed was this child simply didn’t know how to study!
Because the ADHD diagnosis is now so widely accepted (and misunderstood), students and parents have grown suggestible enough to believe medication is the answer. In fact, thanks to all those television commercials you see and magazine ads you read over 8 million children are being prescribed psychiatric drugs in the USA alone, and that includes 1 million children under age 5!

Of the hundreds of students I have tutored, the ones on the medication have been the slowest. Not because there were naturally slow, but because the medication toned them down. It turned them from an alert child into a monotonous zombie.

Years ago I was tutoring a bright girl who then went to a neurologist who said she was ADHD. She then had to ‘get used to’ her medication. I continued to tutor her, but what happened was her mental math declined, her cognitive processing slowed down and her mood became more wooden.

I had another bright student studying for the ACTs. She had her issues with the test, but she was always engaged with what she was learning. As test day was approaching, she disclosed that she was labeled ADHD even though she never displayed any of your ‘typical’ ADHD signs when I was tutoring her.  She was deciding whether or not to ‘take a pill’ the day of the test to give her a boost. My viewpoint is why would you introduce an unknown into your routine when you are already successful?

More recently, I tutored someone who was essentially an honors student, but just like baseball players looked for an edge in ‘the steroid era,’ this student did six hours of ADHD testing only in hopes of getting more time for tests. (He was already finishing his tests in time.)

I am not saying that the symptoms you experience when trying to learn something are bogus, but the brain-based theory behind the cause is the first misdirection, which makes the medication a ‘mis-solution.’ I will continue to tutor ADD/ADHD students, but I will be tutoring the student and not the diagnosis.

You have the potential to learn anything and if you can’t it doesn’t mean you have ADD or ADHD. It means you need to learn the technology of study. We take classes in different areas of knowledge, but we never have classes on how to learn. That is something I always introduce to the struggling student. I will even do a full lesson only on study skills. And then you won’t have to spend hours memorizing something for a test, because you will simply know it.

Check out my how to study page and get some real data about ADHD and child mental disorders.

Posted on

Why A Tutor?

girl studying

Why a tutor is more and more paramount to successful education.

A major reason a tutor is called in is usually borne out of the classroom environment. You have one teacher speaking to 20, 30 or even 100 students at one time and not every student processes what is being taught at the same speed. Some get bored because the teacher is going too slow, some tune out because they can’t keep up. I have experienced this from even tutoring three people at once, so you can see why students may veer off to doodling, passing notes and Snapchat.

I can usually pick up within the first few minutes of a lesson what a student’s difficulty is. If they are rubbing eyes, yawning, sluggish I know there is something there. A lot of these manifestations can be misconstrued as ADD/ADHD. While I’ve helped plenty of students who have been given those labels, in each instance, it was simply a lack of knowing HOW to study that came into play. They didn’t see the pothole in the road so they just picked up another dent in their comprehension. One of a tutor’s responsibilities is to smooth out the dents.

Now I don’t just say to the student, “You have [insert condition here]. Cut it out.” I never tell the student they have a shortcoming. So how can you catch your potholes?

Well, for those who go blank during class and those who get tired or feel squashed or wind up in a big confusion during a lesson, I recommend this crucial PDF called “Barriers to Study.”  Most difficulties grasping a subject can be traced back to a misunderstood word, among other barriers, which are covered in the PDF.

Simply apply this pamphlet to your study and you will see a change and being willing to ask for help. Whether it’s from a teacher, a tutor, or, usually in this case, a dictionary. It’s not a shot to your ego if you are finding the solution. If anything, it should build up your ego.

So whether it’s trouble with a subject, a class or general study skills or organization, I know, as a tutor, I can come in and improve the situation.



Evan wrote this so no bio necessary, but join his mailing list here!