Male Teacher Helping Male Student

IT’S TIME TO HIRE A TUTOR

Although the end of the school year is near, just like your child’s favorite sport, where education is concerned there is no off-season. If you thought there was an educational off-season, you are mistaken and I urge you to think again.

THE ALL-TIME GREATS

The all-time sports greats don’t dare take summers off. In fact, the all-time greats find it nearly impossible to take a day off. For the all-time greats, a day off is equated with a day wasted and an opportunity for their rivals to get closer to them.

If you don’t believe me Google your favorite athlete’s off-season workout. You’ll find Peyton, Tom, Lebron, Serena and the like working harder in the “off-season” than they do during the season. All of them realize that to be the best, they have to train continuously and consistently; in a way that is smarter and harder than everyone else.

Speaking of training, you won’t find them training alone either. In every case, they work with a coach, a personal trainer, an athletic tutor if you will. They collaborate with the best trainers available because they know that their personal path to greatness is a paved by a collective effort.

The all-time greats do not become the all-time greats by accident. The all-time greats build their legacy on seeking, trusting and following the advice and assistance of those who know more than they do. The all-time greats believe in having tutors.

THE MOST IMPORTANT MUSCLE

Parents and children alike would be wise to apply the success method used by the all-time athletic greats to learning. This year, rather than taking the summer off to sit around and watch as rival nations continue to eviscerate the US in all educational measurements, parents should get their children, tutors. Just in case you hadn’t noticed, our children are competing for a spot in an ultra-competitive, technologically advanced…shrinking global economy.

If our children are going to have any hope of being able to care for themselves, provide for their future offsprings, and fight for the continued existence of the planet, they are going to need skilled professional coaching, especially during the off-season. If parents are remotely serious about seeing our children become the best academic version of themselves and reach their individual potential – just like their favorite athlete – our children are going to need the best professional help available to them.

This summer before you send your child off to a sports camp and/or hire a personal trainer for a sport your child is unlikely to play professionally, get a tutor instead. Hire a tutor to help train your child’s most important muscle – the one between their ears. The brain is the muscle children should be trained in how to develop and utilize more than any other muscle.

TIME TO BRING IN THE PROFESSIONALS

This summer hire the professionals. These are not my words but I believe them to be true “in life you have only three choices – to lead, to follow or to get left behind“. This summer hire the best tutor possible to so that you may help your child catch up, get ahead and/or stay ahead.

If you are as serious about your child’s education and their future as I believe you are, I trust you will consider the following four keys to finding a tutor:

1. Master – The all-time greats would never hire a rookie or one who isn’t at the top of their profession and neither should you. If your child needs help with math, hire a mathematician, not a math teacher. If your child needs help with English, hire an English professor, not someone who majored in education.

If you aren’t yet convinced of the necessity for greatness think of tutoring this way, if your child needed heart surgery would you want a general practitioner, an average surgeon, or the best, most experienced, and credentialed surgeon in the world? Enough said!

2. Experience – I think we can all agree that similar to choosing a world renown heart surgeon to perform heart surgery for our sick child, if our children are going to get the type of educational assistance we believe they are most deserving of, parents are going to have to provide the best, most credentialed educational professional available. In addition to choosing amongst the BEST tutor options available make sure you select someone who has experience working with children similar to yours.

Subject matter mastery doesn’t always equal compatibility. You don’t want a tutor who only tutors college students if your child is a third grader. Nor do you want a tutor who prefers elementary age students, if your child is in college. Tutoring is personal. Tutoring requires compatibility. Make sure you choose the right tutor for your child.

3. Affable – Few things expedite learning more than when a child is taught by someone who is not only enthusiastic about teaching but is equally excited about learning. A tutor who is passionate about the subject matter and who is also a lifelong learner is worth their weight in gold. When this tutor shows up, children can’t help but become infected with hope and infused with inspiration.

Tutors who love their work are happiest when they are teaching. The best tutors sow the seeds that produce students who become possessed by a mission to be the best possible versions of themselves, to fulfill their life’s purpose and to change the world. When the master loves the subject so too does the pupil.

4. Committed – Finally, the tutor must be committed. In regards to a tutor’s commitment, there can be no equivocation. The tutor must understand, accept, and honor their role – to bring out the academic and intellectual best in a child. Like the athletic trainers of the all-time greats, the sole goal of a tutor must be to help your child be an all-time great student.

Find a tutor who is guided by the belief that we all have the same 24 hours in a day and most of us have limited financial resources. The tutor who is led by this precept is the tutor who will never disrespect your time nor take your resources for granted. If by some unfortunate chance you hire an uncommitted tutor, relax. The mistake of hiring an uncommitted tutor will be simple to spot and easy to correct.

Hiring an uncommitted tutor is like trying to use wet matches at a camp fire. Wet matches cannot incite a fire. Likewise, an uncommitted tutor cannot incite learning. Just like those wet matches you only need to toss the uncommitted tutor aside.

The search and screening to find a committed tutor is definitely worth the effort. Don’t be discouraged by the process of finding one, simply look closely and carefully. Because when you find a committed tutor, you have located the accelerant that can turn the smallest educational spark into a five alarm fire of enlightenment – that unquenchable love for education that will burn in your children for a lifetime.

NOT THE FINAL FOUR

The aforementioned four keys aren’t the final four, they are merely intended to give you a point of reference, a place to start. What I truly hope you take away is this: American children are as deserving as any children in the world of having a chance to lead or at the very least keep up educationally.

Yet, if our children are going to have any hope of keeping up and leading academically, they are going to have to work harder and smarter in the off-season (summer vacation). Moreover, if we are counting on our children to be able to steer the course of the universe towards prosperity and happiness for everyone, parents are going to have to get tutors for our children today.

What comes to your mind when you hear the word tutor?  Does your child have a tutor? When you think of tutors do you think of remediation or acceleration?