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The life of a private tutor (2020)
- Bayart 5y agoMirror : https://archive.ph/nW0eS https://archive.ph/nW0eS
- giarc 5y agoPaywalled - access here https://outline.com/PCcptc https://outline.com/PCcptc
- cafard 5y agoNone of this is particularly new. Tutors and "crammers" make regular appearances in older British fiction. The writer Sidney Smith got his start as tutor to a nobleman's son, and facetiously or otherwise suggested that such work was a good step up to a bishopric (though Smith's clerical career not got past dean).
- trentnix 5y agoI only got two paragraphs in before my THIS IS FICTION alarm bells were too loud to ignore.
- cafard 5y agoJust over ten years ago, the NY Times had an article about a disappointed parent suing a tutoring company. I forget what her beef was, but she had paid out $35 thousand in the course of a year.
- handrous 5y agoThat seems entirely plausible. That's in the same territory as boarding school prices for one kid (some are more expensive, of course, but it's around the same price as that sort of thing), so clearly there exist people willing and able to pay that much for their kids' education. Hell, with a couple kids you can break that much per year at a cheap-end-of-mid-priced day school.
- gumby 5y agoI have seen this kind of thing directly. Kids in private school who take their homework to the “tutoring session” where the tutor basically does it for them. My own kid did tutoring for beer money while in school. I don’t think the article is fundamentally fictional, though clearly some of the retelling has been dressed up a bit.
- lbriner 5y agoWhy is it fiction? People who are rich enough to pay an entire yacht crew are not going to worry about $50K a year for a tutor to try and make their lazy waste-of-space child at least have half a chance of creating their own success when they are older.
- watwut 5y agoIf the kid is lazy waste of space and the tutor can make the difference, paying one just sounds like good parenting. Also, a lot of these kids are smart and hardworking and motivated. The money are an additional advantage and parents having resources to ensure they stay motivated and active is advantage too. But, the assumption that they are all dumb or lazy is wrong.
- trentnix 5y agoOf course rich people pay for tutors. Of course some rich people have stupid expectations. But the whole setup reads like it's the start of a Chuck Palahniuk novel and that makes me certain the author is full of s**.
- fargus_dorsalby 5y agoI’ve had very similar experiences, I don’t think this felt exaggerated at all
- golergka 5y agoOne of the most important competitive advantages in modern world is motivation to do things on your own. And all this tutoring that kids are forced to be doing by adults is killing it.
- lbriner 5y agoSo true but this youngster doesn't sound like someone who needs to win, he is already made. All he (or his parents) want is to look like they are successful by saying, "Little Johnny got 15 GCSEs".
- lumost 5y agoAs a new parent I'm really torn on this topic. On the one hand building resiliency and self-motivation need to happen through self-directed activities. On the other hand, Sitting on a couch watching Netflix probably isn't the most efficient way to build these skills.
- MathYouF 5y agoI found that heavy amounts of discussion of the "why" for any activity, and then instilling confidence in that person that they're capable of doing the thing that they've already agreed to the "why" for, is a necessary prerequisite for their self directed activities to be productive ones. The problem with most kids and adults I know is they either lack a depth of reasoning for why they ought to be doing something better, or lack the confidence that they'd be able to accomplish it if they put their mind to it. If you can't come up with a convincing "why" for them, then you should reflect on how sustainable forcing them to do that thing will be once they have independence. There were a lot of things my mom expected of me (similar to these kids with tutors). Some of them I agreed with, some of them I didn't. When I finally got my independence at 18, guess which ones stuck, and which ones (where a lot of time and effort was put into cultivating them) evaporated? Talk to your children deeply about the why, and, as the saying goes, they'll suffer almost any how.
- Johnny555 5y agoI think it goes beyond simple academic test results -- even successful parents take pride in their children's accomplishments, so they want to be able to say "Johnny grew up to be a successful lawyer and he's going to take over the family business". So they are doing what they can to set their children up for success. Unless they are uber-wealthy, then they'll just say "Johnny is sailing our yacht around the Mediterranean (and when we say "sailing", we mean there's an 8 person crew running the boat)"
- tzury 5y agoOne would think that in the internet era, where so much information and knowledge are avaialble online for free, those would disappear. Apprently not.
- BitwiseFool 5y agoThere's no way to replicate the engagement that an actual teacher/tutor can provide. Some people can do just fine with self-directed study but I image most people aren't autodidacts.
- lumost 5y agoSelf-learning also comes with the pitfall that you may optimize for the wrong things. When it comes to standardized tests/certain career expectations you are expected to have a broad understanding of the orthodox views on the evaluated topics.
- jackson1442 5y agoI tutored for a short stint during my senior year of highschool (graduated in S2020, so this included the pandemic), through my Fall 2020 term at university. This is pretty much exactly what I experienced. I was a member of an online marketplace, so I wasn't necessarily an "elite" tutor by any means, but I found that most of my students just needed instruction that was more tailored to them. A lot of them were working towards AP exams (computer science), so working with someone who had taken that exam, knew what was on it, and intimately understood how it was graded proved rather valuable, at least from what the parents reported back to me.
- slumdev 5y agoA guide is more important than ever. Information is properly assimilated through some mental schema. When teachers talk about teaching people "how to learn", they're talking about helping a student to form those schemata (as well as specific techniques, etc.)
- ChuckNorris89 5y agoYou can't automate the human interaction out through tech. That's like expecting coffee vending machines to have made baristas obsolete. As an adult I can do self study just fine and since I work in tech that's expected of me, but as a kid I was way too thick to learn the school curriculum on my own.
- bagol 5y agoWhere is the full article?
- tyingq 5y agohttps://outline.com/PCcptc https://outline.com/PCcptc
- dataphyte 5y agoBloom's 2-Sigma Problem: students getting one-on-one instruction perform 2 standard deviations better than those learning from ordinary instruction methods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_2_sigma_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_2_sigma_problem
- dweekly 5y agoYes! The thing that was missing in the original article was answering the most important question in all of this: Does Tutoring Work? The implication left for a reader of the original article is that tutoring is mostly about exam-prep or that it is under-regulated, ineffectual, and a folly of the rich. But the truth is that the over-regulation of conventional time-based classroom learning is deeply flawed based on our understanding of how people learn. Throwing thirty teenagers in a room at 8am and having a tenured adult speak at them for 45 minutes on a subject is not a recipe for success, nor is moving everyone along at the same pace and calling the material complete after a semester of education regardless of the depth of understanding conveyed. We need intensive and personalized schooling with mastery based learning - and to answer the question of "where are we going to get that many teachers?" we need people to teach as part of how they learn. For some odd reason society only starts to embrace this in graduate school.
- adverbly 5y ago> we need people to teach as part of how they learn. I've got a principle I came up with called LTD: Learn, Teach, Do. The idea is to prioritize activities where I can be doing all three at the same time. An example would be pair programming with a junior on a new problem where I don't know how to solve every part of the problem. "Learn on the job together with a team, and share learnings as you go" is basically the kind of work that I mean. I've found LTD activities are awesome in so many ways. You build up the team around you, grow as an individual, and get shit done all at the same time. I'm increasingly against activities which focus strongly on only one of these(school being the main example).
- em-bee 5y ago
- knaik94 5y agoThere was definitely a lot lost when the pandemic happened. The social cues, the personal interaction, the ability to get a student to focus was greatly diminished. I always think about how the number of people who want to work remotely is an interesting contrast to how many people want to learn one on one in person. I believe students have said okay to remote one to many educators, with things like online university. But especially in math and chemistry and physics, people want in person tutoring.
- onetimeusename 5y agoEvery student's case mentioned made it seem like the goal of tutoring is for the student to acquire elite status and prestige by going to highly selective schools through the planning by their neurotic parents. The material learned was less relevant. I want to teach my students how to follow their passions, how to strive for the life they want, rather than for hollow symbols of success. It seems like hollow symbols of success are what the parents and institutions have agreed to create though. The number of schools and slots for students has apparently not changed much but the number of students across the globe who are competing for slots in a few, elite western schools has gone up enormously. That drives the value of the degree up through scarcity which seems to be what people want for their children, is ways to be more elite than their peers. It's probably not surprising then that bribery happens. The schools aren't really selling an education anymore and the parents aren't really looking for one either.
- ryandrake 5y agoWell, elite jobs typically go to people who can show these hollow symbols of success, so as long as that's true, there will be demand for "elite status" and "prestige". The elite jobs are not hiring for what material was learned--they're hiring based on your membership in the club and your pedigree. Fix the demand for hollow symbols and maybe they become less important. Good luck getting Goldman and McKinsey to stop looking for Harvard on resumes though.
- sandworm101 5y agoI attended an "elite" boys school back in the 1990s. It was a doctor and lawyer factory. Everyone went to university and most got advanced degrees. But I talked to a teacher there recently. The students are now so wealthy that they are hard to motivate. Doctors have to touch sick people. Lawyers have to go work in an office. The students at my old school today don't dream of success. They all pass, they all do well, but they aren't performing like they used to. They know they will all go work for daddy's real estate/banking firm. Why bother even trying? My old school is now no longer the top in the country, slipping to 4th last time I looked. The student body is smart, but simply doesn't try as hard at anything anymore. I don't blame them.
- inglor_cz 5y agoThis seems to be another element of the "overproduction of elites" theory by Peter Turchin that was discussed here a few days ago. In a world where the upper middle and upper class has grown to all time high numbers, there is ever more adepts for prestigious titles and prestigious jobs. But the Oxfords and Harvards of the world do not multiply themselves, and they have no incentive to. If the product that they sell grows in value and price, why should they do anything to reduce that value again? We often criticize greed of capitalists, but top class universities seem to be engaged in something very similar, while mostly escaping the negative attention.
- distrill 5y agoPrestigious universities get a lot of negative attention for precisely this, at least in some circles. MBAs used to be a no brainer, but the return on their investment has plummeted and much of the value that is retained by the few that retain it is tied up in the exclusivity of the brand. I think (hope) we're also starting to see a reaction to this. For example google is offering free education and at least claiming to consider their graduates as equal to university graduates.
- watwut 5y agoThe univeraities under top provide very food education. The people studying there are fully qualified to the same powerful jobs. You dont need Harward/Yale to tripple class, you need to stop looking at Harward/Yale exclusively when picking those career boosting clerkships.
- gport 5y agoThe Economist starts writing daring pieces again. It seems that the mainstream media in Britain starts to realize the mess they have created in the last decade and throws around the rudder. Hopefully the continent will follow.
- pyuser583 5y agoIt’s not an Economist article, it’s an 1843 article. 1843 is an Economist spinoff that focuses on “culture.” It let’s them take risks while preserving their core product.
- em-bee 5y agorelated, in china it was just announced that private tutoring will be m̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶i̶l̶l̶e̶g̶a̶l̶ severely restricted. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/exclusive-china-unveil-tough-new-rules-private-tutoring-sector-sources-2021-06-16/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/exclusive-china-unveil-t...
- babelfish 5y agoThe article linked is much more nuanced than just 'private tutoring will be made illegal'
- baybal2 5y agoI don't normally believe promises of "nuanced approach" coming from a communist party, well, any promises.
- j0e1 5y agoProbably because of British influence, private tutors are a commonplace in India. Being raised there, my parents though encouraged me to just work hard myself and not rely on external tutors. There were, however, a few years where I did get tutoring for a few subjects that I needed help with- and my experience has been great! Especially, for the 12th standard (high school) Physics where I got >90% in the board exam. The tutor knew his stuff and the pattern of the 'board exam' well. On the other hand, I have had peers who rely on private tutoring almost entirely and almost neglect what is being taught in schools. And I have known parents who see schools as a necessary evil. There is also, the world of preparing for 'entrance exams' (including IIT-JEE) which is where I have seen tutoring to the extreme. Students who 'drop-out' (still enrolled on paper but not attending in-person) of regular school starting as early as 8th standard (grade) and move to cities where there are mini-economies based on such preparatory institutes. They only go back to their home-towns to write the final exams which is usually subset of what they would learn at the institutes anyway. But the sacrifice they make to be away from family for most parts of the year and the hours they spend staring at a book is admirable. Note: Please don't take this as a generalization of what happens in India- just what I saw growing up in New Delhi.
- phantom_oracle 5y agoI picked this up from my time watching those British period pieces, so this might be an assumption based on a fictional telling of the past, but hasn't this concept of being a private teacher/tutor been around for hundreds of years? As these shows always showed the aristocracy, the aspiring hero/heroin had their private teachers "guiding them to greatness". I also found it cynical that instead of aspiring to get a PhD to earn a mediocre salary(in comparison) at FANNG, one could navigate the field of being the private tutor to the already-rich and probably earn more. Random person: "What do you do for a living that has made you so wealthy?" Elite Hong Kong tutor: "I tutor 12 year olds privately on mathematics."
- romwell 5y ago>instead of aspiring to get a PhD to earn a mediocre salary(in comparison) at FANNG As a PhD at FAANG[1], I mourn that the default aspiration for getting a PhD isn't staying in academia and advancing science. And if you call FAANG salaries mediocre, I don't even know what you'd call academia salaries :( ------- [1] Formerly. Left for greener and less soul-draining pastures.
- jsjohnst 5y ago> And if you call FAANG salaries mediocre (in comparison) The wording of the sentence wasn't ideal, but GP was implying you could potentially make a lot more as a private tutor than you would at a FAANG. I'd argue that is a bit of rose colored glasses as there are far more making 200k a year at a FAANG than there are million dollar a year making private tutors.
- pyuser583 5y agoIsn’t there already overproduction of PhDs?
- queuebert 5y agoGiven that we still don't have a Mars base, haven't solved the climate problem, and aren't living sustainably on the planet, I would say no.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Cybotron5000 5y agoIt’s not really the subject of the article, but debating whether tutoring/teaching/education works, as a lot of posts here seem to be (without too much of a scooby what they’re talking about, if I may say so…), is really as daft as debating whether eg. computer programming works... Teaching is a real skill and, to say the least, it isn’t always easy, especially to pick up as a ‘side-hustle’. It has its own learning curve. That goes for both private tuition and teaching in schools/universities. Different teachers/teaching/learning styles suit different pupils. Trying to teach a subject soon shows up whether you really know it well, but you can really know a subject and be terrible at teaching it… I thought what was interesting about the article is that it highlights what can be a problematic power dynamic between parents/tutors, especially if you are inexperienced/unsure of yourself as a tutor/teacher (or financially precarious, as all the tutors/teachers I’ve ever known are), that is, you can end up pandering to what the parents/pupils think they want (or what a certain curriculum/bureaucracy demands), rather than working in the best, long-term interests of the pupil… But most parents/kids are brilliant and this isn’t a problem… Again, it really depends… A lot of practical/intuitive psychology/varied communication skills, patience and understanding are required to be a good teacher IMHO. and again, you get better in these respects over time… There are a heck of a lot of advantages to teaching one-on-one, especially with increasing class sizes/budget cuts in public institutions at least/vastly differing abilities/concentration levels of students… In an ideal world students would understand how lucky/privileged they were to get private tuition, though as you might imagine that’s not always the case… Being a great teacher is sometimes unavoidably about ‘teaching’ more than just the subject you are teaching, if that makes any sense, as is maybe highlighted at the beginning of the article…
- rdtwo 5y agoI know a lot is people here are judging but when I read this the first question that comes to mind is how do I hire a good tutor for my kid. The second is Why aren’t there a bunch of startup getting into the business. Public schools are clearly failing kids so tutors could be a really good bridge to fill the gap.