It is almost a year now since I started my
maths tuition business. It truly is an interesting and satisfying occupation,
especially when students whose teachers have relegated them to the bottom set
improve and gain confidence under my guidance. My main difficulty is marketing
my services: I have very few pupils outside the main “season” of February to
June. I am also always on the lookout for new ideas to make my lessons fun,
interesting and, especially, memorable. Tutoring as a Successful Business
sounded as if it was just what I needed.

The book is divided into two sections and a
large appendix of teaching materials and tips. The first section, which makes
up over half of the book, is about the author’s experience of tutoring, while
the second section covers the business side.

The first section captured my interest
immediately with a story about a small, shy boy who was struggling with his
first grade lessons. Under the guidance and help of the author, his reading and
mathematics improves and he also gains confidence. This is an inspiring opener.
However, as I read further, I found that there were more and more similar
anecdotes. Although they all made entertaining reading, I found it hard to
extract the advice and suggestions that I wanted, because the principles were
so deeply interwoven with these stories. Using examples to illustrate points is
very important in most texts; essential, even, but here it seemed that the
examples were almost the main point of the book, and the principles almost an
afterthought.

I also noticed that the examples in the
book all come from a single person’s experience. Although the author is
undoubtedly superb at her job, we all have different personalities and
backgrounds, and it would have been interesting to hear of other tutors’
experiences. Perhaps this underlines one of the disadvantages of becoming a
private tutor: unless you employ other tutors (as the author has sometimes
done) you can end up being somewhat isolated, with no colleagues to share ideas
with.

Some of the second section, on the business
side of tutoring, was irrelevant to me, since it was written for American
tutors, and I work in the UK. However, there was still plenty of material that
would still apply in the UK. The main difficulty for me, and probably for most
other tutors, is the expense. One of the suggestions was to send a mail-out to
all households with students in the area. The author also says that she placed
a large advertisement in the local paper every single week. She mentions radio
and television advertisements. The cost of any of these would be far too great
for most tutors in the UK; only agencies can afford to do this. It is
interesting that the author does not mention Internet advertising or email, even
though the book was first published in 2001; perhaps this is because she has
built up her business without the aid of the Internet and therefore sees no
need to use it herself.

The writing is lively and enthusiastic,
though the style often seems rather childish. It is obvious that the author
loves and believes in her work. On the other hand, I felt there needed to be
more acknowledgement that there can be difficulties. What if you really cannot
get along with a pupil, or her parents? What can you do about this, and when
should you terminate the tuition? Generally these difficulties are glossed
over. For example, the author describes what she does when the children
describe work as ‘boring’. ‘ “That word is a cop-out,” I tell my students. “You
use it so that you won’t have to work. So from now on, you can’t use that word
here with me.” And you know what? After I say that, they stop using the word!’
(p. 61) To me, it seems that the author is the one using the cop-out. If the
child finds the work boring, then this should be a cue for me to try to find a
way to make it interesting. Sometimes this is impossible; in that case, it may
be best to admit that some things we have to do in life can be boring, and that
the student will just have to grit his teeth and get on with it. Denying that a
task is boring does not take the boredom away.

Most of the book’s emphasis is on helping
children to understand the material they are required to learn. Clearly this is
enormously important. I have found myself, though, that it is usually fairly
easy to get children to understand most of the work and to complete standard
exercises on the subject. The difficulty is in remembering it. You can explain
something, such as adding fractions, in one lesson, and by the end of the
lesson the child is working out the most difficult examples you can think up,
and almost seems to be enjoying it. At the beginning of the next lesson, you ask her to add up a half and a third,
and she gives you the answer two-fifths, as if the previous lesson never
happened. Experienced schoolteachers have told me that they have the same
problem, so I know it’s not just me!

I found myself reassured (as well as
envious!) by reading about the author’s success as a tutor. It evidently is
possible to make a tutoring business work over the long term. However, I found
that there was little in the book that I could use to improve my own business.
There were a few ideas in the “tutoring math” section and in the appendices
that were of value, but overall I felt that this book, rather than being the
manual I had hoped for, was more like an autobiography.

© 2002 Natalie Simpson
 

Natalie Simpson is a mathematics
graduate of Oxford University, England, and holds a diploma in hypnotherapy.
She developed an interest in psychology, psychotherapy and hypnosis after
experiencing hypnotherapy herself. Her specific concerns include the assessment
of the effectiveness and risks of psychotherapy, and the difficulties of
obtaining informed consent of clients.

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