The Value of Academic Tutoring

Any classroom teacher will tell you that they want their students to succeed. It's true, even the narcissists (and trust me, there are many, particularly in public education) get a sense of pride in the ability to transmit knowledge to an individual, and consequently, have the student demonstrate their understanding of that knowledge in one way or another. However, like many of you already know, due to the amount of red tape in (particularly public) education, it's very difficult (albeit very possible) to help your students attain and retain academic knowledge and skills as they go throughout the year. Before I go any further, I must say, after teaching in a high-needs public school for ten years, I am grateful that I saw mountains of academic progress, and many of you can rest assured there are many good--and even many really great--teachers that outweigh the rotten apples in the system. But that's not where I wanted the focus of this blog to be today. In the midst of all the negativity--and rightfully so--surrounding public education, the system does try to teach academic skills, most of which are relevant and applicable beyond the classroom. However, many students, due to various reasons, need help beyond the classroom. Many of you who are reading this might take a sense of pride in providing that assistance at home, and I applaud you, because that, in all respects, is the best support system. Not only are you showing your children the importance of the learning, but it also shows that you are committed to their success, which supersedes any commitment a teacher can give.

As a language arts teacher, I can remember that it was difficult in a 45-minute class to effectively get everyone calmed down and focused, review what we worked on yesterday, build and expand on that information the day of, and apply it to some task the next day. Naturally, there were limitations to classroom instruction and at home learning where we had to bridge communication and instruction between the two. On my end, the immediate challenge was to develop a plan to consistently return to common principles and basic knowledge and continuously apply that to new literature we read the next day in hopes my students would retain the information for summative assessments or for future topics that may have been built on previous knowledge. However, the process never worked that smoothly; students were absent (even for extended periods of time), there were distractions, interruptions, assemblies, snow days. Yes, there were too many distractions that the public school system really needs to--and simply won't--limit in order for the students to be successful. Consequently, I always hoped there'd be additional resources available to help fill the gaps of the loss of instructional time when my students were not in class, and that's where I would stress the value of a third party source: the academic tutor.

To that end, after leaving the secondary classroom to teach at the university level, I still find gaps in student knowledge, and this dilemma convinced me to take on a part-time job at a local tutoring center. After working there for only a short while, here are some thoughts and observations about my experience:

1. You get better quality instruction.

Academic tutors provide deeper instruction you don't get in the classroom. The challenge for the classroom teacher is to juggle teaching content in a cramped room in a 40-45 minute time crunch, which includes any number of distractions. The most challenging dynamic is that the classroom is not only full of external distractions, but also full of students, sometimes 25-35 at a time, all with varying needs and abilities, and therefore it's virtually impossible for each student to get the best instruction they need every time. Don't get me wrong, there are many things you can teach, and teach well, but it is far inferior to the one-on-one, focused, uninterrupted, undivided instruction you get at a tutoring session. Furthermore, most tutoring centers have their staff divided by subject area and level of knowledge. Therefore, you or your child are working with an expert in that particular field. What better way to get the most out of the learning experience?

2. The tutoring center is not interested in pushing some social or political agenda at the taxpayer's expense.

I'm sure all of us have heard horror stories about the kind of nonsense that goes on at the public school--believe me, I taught at two over an eleven-year span. It's disgusting the liberties that some teachers take in "objectively teaching" content. In many cases, it's content that just isn't academic, relevant. moral, or true. If you don't like teachers deliberately subverting your authority and values at home by pushing agendas instead of delivering content, then this can be avoided with a private tutor. Don't forget, you are allowed in your child's classroom at the public and private school anytime, and I always encouraged the parents of my students to take advantage of this. Of course, this is encouraged at the private tutoring center as well.

3. In the long run, it's less expensive.

This may seem counter-intuitive, but hear me out.

Although this was somewhat obtuse to me, most parents save for a college fund. I don't mean to say this is a bad thing, but I just figured that people began working at fifteen or sixteen, saved for their own college, and then worked part-time or full-time as they went through it to pay for their tuition and other expenses--and if I couldn't afford it, I didn't have my parents pay for it. I took time off and worked more until I had enough to pay that semester. I don't say this to sound like a pull yourself up by the bootstraps hero, I'm simply making the point that this is not the typical model. The college model has overpriced the education and over-emphasized the importance of it, so people pay and pay and pay. This model seems to be working well for the universities, if people are willing to do it, but who wouldn't like to pay less for college? Everyone. Academic tutoring can help. Many tutoring services offer classes or courses or even tutoring sessions on performing well on academic tests in order to achieve a score that will encourage universities to provide that prospective student with a scholarship or two, or three. These will, in the log run, heavily outweigh the cost of paying for the over-priced institution. To that end, you could end up saving thousands of dollars of your--or hopefully your kids' money. According to a U.S. News article, the average costs of in-state and out-of-state tuition was $10,388 and $38,185 for the 2021-2022 year, respectively. Sorry, but this is ridiculous. However, just think of what's not factored in...students who drop or fail courses and have to retake them or students who end up changing their major. The point is, any money helps, and the best way to do that is by prepping in high school to earn some kind of scholarship to off-set the astronomical prices.

Conversely, an academic tutoring session, which, after scouting literally scores of tutoring services, is about $25/hour and is held once a week. Even if you go weekly over a school year (four nine-week periods), which calculates to be $900 a year, it will still save you money when you figure in the average scholarships earned from students who regularly attend tutoring to be between $5000-$10000 (How Much Money). No, this model does not work for everyone, I just added it into the discussion in order to see the long-term benefits of tutoring.

Ultimately, it is up to you to decide what vocational, academic, and professional track you want to pursue. This was not an article saying that one is better than the other. It was simply to point out that there is another personalized and possibly more economically-preferable assistant to navigating it, and that is, the academic tutor.

"How Much Money Can I Expect From Scholarships." Frank., withfrank.org, 2021.

https://withfrank.org/how-to-pay-for-college/what-are-the-types-of-aid- available/grants-and-scholarships/how-much-money-can-i-expect-from- scholarships/