Yet again, a combination of lazy journalism and tuition agencies lining up to promote themselves has resulted in a news ‘story’ about tutoring. Both The Times and The Evening Standard have jumped on the bandwagon with tales of the tutoring ‘arms race’ and its ‘epidemic’ proportions. Take the following quote from Scotland’s Sunday Herald:
A combination of pushy parents and increasing pressure to do well has forced more and more pupils to sign up for extra lessons – so many that some educationalists are now worried about the effects of that pressure.
The funny thing about the above quote is that I actually dug it out from an article published in 2001 – almost ten years ago.
One of the problems with this area is that there is very little independent research into private tutoring, and that with a dose of media hysteria statements such as the following from Mylene Curtis of Fleet Tutors (in the Times article) can end up turning into self-fulfilling prophecies:
There is a fear factor among parents … They are unsettled by constantly changing initiatives, lack of confidence in local schools, dropping standards and under-qualified teachers.
The fact is that Britain’s schools are not in crisis, no matter what the headline writers would have us believe. The recent Cambridge Review – the most comprehensive enquiry into English primary education for 40 years – found that primary teachers have never neglected the 3Rs and that primary schools may be “the one point of stability and positive values in a world where everything else is changing and uncertain”.
Journalists’ assumptions about what it is that tutors do also need to be challenged. Anne McElvoy’s claim in The Standard that parents are so worried that they will pay tutors for “stuffing yet more learning into their young” fundamentally misunderstands the psychology of tutoring. The research (see here) actually shows that, more than any other form of learning, tutoring stimulates independent thinking.
Moreover, because the power of tutoring lies mainly in the constructive contributions of the student themselves, the need for so-called expert tuition is diminished and tutoring needn’t be as socially iniquitous as many commentators like to make out. In other words, a novice tutor (or parent, sibling or friend) with a good grasp of the subject could instead achieve excellent results through very simple means.
I am surprised still at how people are surprised at tutoring being a new and upcoming form of teaching. It is the oldest, most original and for hundreds of years the only form of teaching. Before schools came into existence (very recently in the context of humanity) everyone learnt things from their parents, friends or other specialists. Obviously if you were richer you could hire your own private tutor to teach you reading, writing, horse riding, sword fighting and what have you not…
Of course the good things about factory type mass education and schooling is that you can educate people in higher numbers than ever before and literacy is only getting better and better. We are living in the best literacy period of all time…and tutoring is the perfect aid to that!
Unfortunately a bigger goal of the factory type of mass education and schooling that occurs today has little to do with increasing the education of the student and more with socialization hence the use of residential schools as a means to assimilate the indigenous in Canada’s aboriginal people. The primary goal was cultural genocide and not higher education. I myself have worked in the public school system in Canada and can testify to the inefficiency of our education system and the corruption that exists at the expense of the tax payer. I have found that tutoring is a superior method of education and have discovered that many children deemed learning disabled, ADHD, have behavior problems can learn effectively this way. I hope that one day there is a switch from our traditional education system to something more efficient that doesn’t involve the use of multimillion dollar facilities that will not be efficiently run unless privatized. I know from experience that a child can learn at an accelerated rate when tutored. I often meet with students who have been mainstreamed through the education system and have literally missed grade levels in learning. I believe our public education system was once useful and perhaps essential but feel that by today’s standards is archaic at best. As technology and society changes so must our education system. I believe with the use of the internet there is becoming a lesser need to travel to a local school to experience learning. I think a more proper and directed education could occur in the home through tutoring services which is more economic and results driven. I also believe the process of socialization should be left to the parents and not the schools. Not to mention the issues today with bullying, drug influence, and the learning of other bad behaviors. I hope that in time society will view the school as a thing of the past and evolve a better method of education that involves the parents to a greater extent.