Jump to content

Menu

Classical Conversations - tutoring?


MeganW
 Share

Recommended Posts

Tell me about your CC tutoring experience.

 

I have been offered the opportunity to tutor. We don't *need* for me to tutor, financially. Obviously we would welcome the discount, but will do CC either way.

 

How much of a time commitment do you find that it is? Do you find that the workload / mental effort takes away from schooling your kids the other days of the week? If you could pick, would you choose the older kids' class or the younger? I assume the Abecedarian level is the hardest? Other thoughts?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The biggest issue with tutoring is prepping. It will take a chunk of your personal time, and time away from your own family and children. Even though they say it doesn't take much time and you have the "accountability" of being on track for your own family, I was always stressed out before class and exhausted afterwards. I wanted to do the best for my own son, and so I became a tutor. In the end I found that not being stressed out and enjoying the process was the best that I could be for him, so I dropped tutoring.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have found that tutoring foundations takes next to no time as far as prep and I have to be there anyway, so what not? I am one of those tutors who uses a tri-fold board. First semester I started by printing everything week by week. At some point I decided that was silly and printed everything I wanted for the semester and put songs for everything I wanted on my iPod. This semester I took care of everything before the semester began. I also sent out an e-mail of presentation topics for the whole semester. My director had a tutor meeting where we did all the experiments, so I know what to do with those. We have a tutor in my group who is an art person, so she has organized the art and introduces the artist and the project in general assembly. At this point all I do for foundations is toss my stuff in the car in the morning and show up.

 

Now, Essentials is something else! It is a huge time suck and when you are there you are really a teacher and not a tutor. A tutor either presents information that the parents then teach at home or reviews information that has already been taught. That isn't what happens with Essentials. I did go through and outline and read EEL. I like IEW and have used it for years with my kids. However, unlike Foundations, the student really must do work at home. Knowing this you would think that the parents would know the material. I am shocked at the number of moms who will tell me that they have never opened EEL and that they don't know anything about IEW. It is a one day a week class. For pete's sake, they can't learn and I can't present everything in one 2 hour class. The parent needs to teach them at home. I will not be teaching Essentials and my child will not be participating in Essentials again. We can do it at home without the stress.

 

HTH-

Mandy

Edited by Mandy in TN
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I won't delete what I wrote, but I wanted to add that I love hanging out with my Foundations group and the stress I feel over Essentials may just be something I put on myself. Unlike Foundations I have found Essentials to be very difficult to use with a group of children with a diverse skill set. This may just be me. I really like tutoring, presenting and reviewing, but I hate feeling like I am shouldering the the burden of instruction.

 

Hope that explained more-

Mandy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am doing 6-8 year olds this semester. I would not want to do 4-5 year olds. I had a rough time with it last semester but I was newly pregnant, sick as a dog, and we were seriously overscheduled.

 

It takes me a couple hours to get ready. I've talked to some other tutors that only take about 20 minutes. I think it would be much, much easier to tutor next year because of what I've learned this year. However, I'm not going to do it with a new baby!

 

It's also been hard having a 2 year old with me during set up and take down time. I have to set up tables, chairs, etc in the room I'm in and my 2 year old keeps jetting out and down the hall. So, between pregnancy, keeping up with her, and the extra work, I'm wishing we could just show up!

 

Would you tutor next year or start now? If you are starting now, that would be a good opportunity to test it out without being committed for the year. I think it is more work than I expected, but I might feel differently if I wasn't pregnant. And, teaching in front of other moms is still sorta stressful for me. I think it would be less stress if it were just me and the kids.

 

Good luck with a decision. The money is nice even if you don't *need* it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...