You may not believe it, but I have met quite a few parents with this idea in their heads. It is very common for parents to have this thinking (especially for your first child).
The panic will come when the child's grades start to plummet for no apparent reason and the parent could not get the grades up no matter what he/she does.
Before I became a school teacher, I thought tutoring was easy too. I built a home tuition career around this belief in 2005 and managed to keep afloat for a year.
During the year, I bought assessment books for my students and taught them well. Some of them did well and some did not.
I realised I had very limited understanding of the syllabus and more importantly, I did not understand young children and the education system.
I decided to teach in schools to gain this knowledge.
I entered the teaching career in 2010. It was an eye-opener. Teaching well was at least 10 times harder than selling. (I was in regional sales before joining teaching.) If you know me personally, you know I am a very good salesman and can sell almost anything. For me to make this comment, it means that to teach well is indeed a very difficult thing to do.
"For me to say teaching is harder than selling, it means that to teach well is indeed a very difficult thing to do."
To teach well, you need the following:
- student/class management skills (try managing 44 kids all at the same time)
- student motivation skills (like motivating a child to complete his homework)
- counselling skills (when the child feels sad/affected by family problems)
- efficient marking skills
- excellent presentation skills (to engage the class)
- teach using multimedia tools
- stay up to date with the current trends for young children
- effective discipline skills (without using 'corporal punishment)
- quality control skills (to manage the quality of homework)
- parenting skills (to show love to your students)
- rapport building skills (to connect with the student)
- art and craft skills (to make stuff for/with students)
- music skills (to conduct music lessons)
- physical training skills (to conduct PE)
- security skills (to perform canteen duty and invigilation duty)
- project management skills (you will not believe how many projects/programs a teacher has to handle in a year)
- people skills (to work with the other educators)
- deep pool of scientific knowledge to teach Science
- parent management skills (to build relationship with parents)
Okay, I have about 21 more points but I think you get the idea.
Back to the comment the parent made. Let's do some estimation.
100 university graduates
--> 20 get into NIE
--> 15 get into schools to teach
--> 5 may become good teachers
--> 1 may become a good mentor
I am not saying this because I am a private tutor and want your business. I am fully-booked to the neck and there are still more people signing up on my waitlist everyday.
I am saying this because it is very difficult to be a good tutor.
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If you are a graduate and you think you can teach your child well, I urge you to:
1. Ask those parents whose kids are already in the upper primary and see if they agree with you. Isn't it best to ask those who had gone through the same path?
2. Compare your child's grades with the whole level and see if he/she is above average. Ask yourself if your child is under-performing. Ask yourself if your child could have done better under a proper tutelage.
3. Does your child understand the content you teach? Is there tension whenever you wanted to teach your child?
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Think again. Is it easy to be a good tutor?
Stay tuned for Part 2.
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