Back when I was teaching, which seems so long ago right now, I also used to tutor kids after school. Never students I actually taught, always random ones from different areas. I stopped for awhile and went back to it while I was teaching disengaged kids (hmm might do a post on that). It was during that tutoring time I discovered I have a dislike for a particular 'trend' in tutoring -- KINDY/Pre-Primary kids -- I was asked to tutor a 4-year old little boy.
I look at it now and wonder what on earth I was thinking, yes I mentioned my reservations to the Tutoring Company and they were great, they said if it felt really wrong, just let them know and I could 'hand the kid back' so to speak. So I went and met with the family - they were lovely, really smart parents, even an adorable little sister and the 4 year old?? He was, well, a 4 year old, hyper as all get up, distracted and generally 4!! I tried I did, for 3 sessions I sat with this little boy and his mum and tried to see 1. what it was that was sooo very bad he needed tutoring and 2. how on earth one can 'tutor' a child who is still only really doing colouring and sticking in his pre-school class...
Needless to say there was not a lot of point to the whole exercise, and to be honest I eventually said exactly that to the mother, hoping she would explain to the father who was the more determined. Turns out they had already decided that the problem was his teacher, not him and were transferring him to a new school...
Now, the reason I mention all this? On Tuesday I have an interview with a new tutoring company...Do I point out I have an age limit, as it turns out?
"...Do I point out I have an age limit?"
ReplyDeleteI think that's a perfectly acceptable request
...Mark