S/O - Downside of tutors

[knitgrl]

@Farrar, in a previous thread, you stated a preference for a math class over a tutor. I am curious about the reasoning. I'm not math-phobic, but it is not my strong suit, and given my ongoing treatment, it is unrealistic for me to pretend I'll be able to reteach myself algebra over the summer.

While I was doing other treatments this past year, dd13 did MEP 7 & 8, and in January, she started going to a tutor for the purpose of doing some more challenging math. The tutor was actually my Algebra I teacher when I when I was in school. When I was making plans for this past year, you had suggested some online classes for math, which didn't pan out mostly because they met at inconvenient times for us. I did contact one whose schedule meshed with ours, but never got a response. So, I asked the tutor if she'd be willing to teach dd Algebra I next year, and she's happy to do it. What are the downsides to this arrangement?

Edited June 26, 2023 by knitgrl

[Farrar]

I remember saying that, but I can't remember the context and I think it was contextual. Sometimes a tutor is a much better option. Sometimes a class is a much better option.

In general, I think a class is often better because the teacher is conceptualizing it as a class. When I've encountered students who have worked with tutors, the tutors have often wound around and around and not finished a course because their primary goal was just "learn stuff" and not "finish a full syllabus." Tutors are often set up to be support for someone else's goals rather than setting their own goals. That or they're set up to provide support by remediating information or teaching supporting skills. When that's the case, sometimes they don't have a destination of achieving a math credit in mind or even any conception of what that might look like. Plus, a class tends to have a set price that's reasonable while a tutor has individual hours that rack up faster than you anticipate.

But sometimes students need intensive attention or their own pacing, in which case having a tutor is obviously better, at least as long as the agenda is clear.

If you're looking at using someone who is used to teaching a full course and will do it just as a one on one, I don't see a lot of downsides to that, especially in math where having a big group discussion of the material is less necessary to enriching the content.

[knitgrl]

7 minutes ago, Farrar said:

I remember saying that, but I can't remember the context and I think it was contextual. Sometimes a tutor is a much better option. Sometimes a class is a much better option.

In general, I think a class is often better because the teacher is conceptualizing it as a class. When I've encountered students who have worked with tutors, the tutors have often wound around and around and not finished a course because their primary goal was just "learn stuff" and not "finish a full syllabus." Tutors are often set up to be support for someone else's goals rather than setting their own goals. That or they're set up to provide support by remediating information or teaching supporting skills. When that's the case, sometimes they don't have a destination of achieving a math credit in mind or even any conception of what that might look like. Plus, a class tends to have a set price that's reasonable while a tutor has individual hours that rack up faster than you anticipate.

But sometimes students need intensive attention or their own pacing, in which case having a tutor is obviously better, at least as long as the agenda is clear.

If you're looking at using someone who is used to teaching a full course and will do it just as a one on one, I don't see a lot of downsides to that, especially in math where having a big group discussion of the material is less necessary to enriching the content.

Thank you for taking the time to set my mind at ease. We're in NY and I'm thinking her final can be just an old Regents exam. I had considered having her actually take the Regents for a split second, but that would mean working with the school district, which is generally hostile to homeschoolers; I try to have as little interaction with them as possible.

[Malam]

Ah, the Regents...

[Arcadia]

On 6/26/2023 at 12:44 PM, knitgrl said:

So, I asked the tutor if she'd be willing to teach dd Algebra I next year, and she's happy to do it. What are the downsides to this arrangement?

My kids had tutors for chinese, german (summer only) and history. For history, the tutor was willing to work with the textbook and guide books that we already owned and cover whatever public school typically cover for history. So that was easy.
For chinese (heritage language), the main aim was for my “slower” kid to not feel defected. We aren’t aiming to cover a year’s work in a year. Also, the tutor is less flexible about textbooks and other materials since she has her preferences.       We could not afford to pay her to teach both kids separately so she has to go at the pace of the slower child. She was already charging us below market rate. 

For german summer tuition in person, it was to make sure kids didn’t forget their stuff over summer and also to improve their conversation skills. So we didn’t need the tutor to cover any scope or syllabus. We just need her to revise grammar, essay writing and to do conversation practice with them. It worked out well for my kids. They attend german classes in person during the academic year and their german language skills typically backslide over summer which is why we hired a tutor to see how it goes. 
So it helps to have a clear idea what you want the tutor to accomplish and also what kind of time commitment the tutor expect. For example, my kids’ chinese tutor expect a high time commitment but we told her upfront we can’t give that kind of time commitment and we are okay with slower progress.  Some of the kids she tutored does only chinese for summer, have tutoring sessions twice or thrice a week, and they improve very fast. 

[kiwik]

Cost.  Plus there are a lot of good courses - self paced, on line synchronous and in person.