For Teachers Who Want to Tutor
Dateline: 2/18/00
"You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him
to find it within himself" --Galileo
By Ann Zeise
Recently it seems not a week goes by I don't get an email
from some fed-up public school teacher who wants to leave her
job and set up a tutoring service for homeschoolers. She's met
some and decided that these are the children that would be most
fun for her to teach. Usually she has not homeschooled her own
kids, but she feels that she could still have something to offer
homeschoolers. She's asking me how to get started.
Do you have a closet full of lessons?
Nixty
Laid off teachers, tutors, co-op instructors, moms and dads ... Do you have lessons you'd like to share with homeschoolers? We are just starting to build a fantastic social networking site of classes and lessons at all levels, and we need your help! You may give away your lessons for free or for a fee to make some money. Only those who charge need share their tuition fees. Sign up for an account in the Nixty link above. Sign up and create your first course today! To be featured here, title the course "Course Name (A to Z Homeschooling)." Click on "Admin" and "Lessons" and start building your first course right away. Nixty is an affiliate site of mine, and I will earn 10% of tuition fees, so I am highly motivated to help YOU start earning money soon!
Monday, March 6, 2000, a North Carolina newspaper ran an article
that talked a lot about teachers who have formed businesses to
assist homeschoolers, to the joy of both: "Home-schoolers
find their options abundant." ... But more and more,
parents are reaching out beyond their own group and hiring certified
teachers in everything from chemistry to computing.
Many of these teachers, eager to make
extra income, are happy to oblige.
"The students I work with are some
of the most polite and respectful I've ever seen," said
Angie Heinze, a certified public school teacher who teaches science
to home-schoolers at a church and at her home. "They thank
me for every class. They help me clean up. They're a breath of
fresh air."
Ann Lahrson-Fisher writes about her "Tuesday School," a misnomer, because it isn't at all like
school! At the Tuesday School, within the boundaries of established
house rules and her minimal requirements for order and structure,
students enjoy an uncommon amount of freedom to discover and
learn through social play, exploration, and directed activities.
Here the steps I'd advise if you wish to start a learning
service for homeschoolers:
Learning/Marketing
Stage
Do a market study in the
area where you are willing to travel. Are there enough homeschoolers?
Drop in at park days and talk to parents about tutoring possibilities.
Ask them what sort of tutoring they want for their children and
what classes they already have them signed up in. Is there some
gap? If so, figure out your niche and place an advertisement
in the publications of support groups. Contact nearby conference
coordinators and see about putting a flyer in their vendor packets.
Try to attend some field trips or other learning situations
where there will be homeschoolers. This will give you a better
idea, especially of what works and what doesn't. You'll see "lectures"
fail dismally, while moderated explorations work wonderfully.
You already knew this, right?
Do subscribe to local support
group newsletters as well as national
publications regarding natural
learning and homeschooling.
Read a number of books
on the topic of homeschooling. I have as many of these listed
and linked on my site that I can find online. There are always
more from groups that aren't online yet.
A good book to read is David Albert's "And
the skylark sings with me" which I have listed in my
Amazon books if you can't find it locally. The Alberts carefully
chose tutors or mentors for their daughters as their interests
dictated. You should expect that homeschool parents will want
some very specific instruction for their child, and not that
they'll want to hand the kids over to you all day and every day
for learning "the basics."
Deciding on Your
Niche
Of course, there are exceptions. If you are free to travel,
you may find some talented youngster who needs to have a tutor along during a road
trip while he performs music or she participates in a sporting
tournament. To teach the children of embassy personnel, contact
some of the groups linked under "Expatriates."
We have a science teacher in our area, Mr
Mack, who has bought himself an old school bus which he has
remodeled into a science lab and painted with a rocket theme.
He offers science classes to homeschoolers and other interested
children's groups, parking his "lab" at a convenient
spot. Quite clever! This fellow regularly advertises in our local
homeschooling newsletter activity journal. As a science teacher,
you may be able to offer discounted buying services to homeschoolers
looking for lab equipment.
Often your experience as a teacher would make you an excellent
field trip coordinator. I've known people who have made an excellent
living just arranging interesting tours for people. They take
care of all the details: the bus, the entrance fees, where to
get food and find the restrooms. Often they sell a "series"
of these trips and people subscribe to them. No reason this couldn't
be done for homeschoolers.
Start a homeschool children's book club. Make sure to serve
pizza. [Author's son's suggestion.]
Conference coordinators often would like to have someone lead
a teen session or provide a set of interesting sessions for elementary
aged children while the homeschool parents attend their own sessions.
Conference season lasts from about April to September, and events
are held all over the country.
If finding resources at a library is your forte, see if your
local library is willing to let you hold a weekly homeschoolers
class in which you help the kids and teens that show up how to
locate and use the library for their own research.
My support group hires a Stanford student each year to lead
all the kids in group games. These are the sort of games that
can be played with a huge group of kids between the ages of 6
and 16 with no one getting trampled. Often support groups are
looking for someone to help them set up a basketball team or
something similar.
Some states require testing
or evaluation and require that it be given by a qualified teacher.
See if this is the case in your state, as such teachers who are
sympathetic toward homeschooling and willing to interpret a lot
of "relaxed" learning into educationalese are few are
far between.
Going Through
the Red Tape
Check the tutoring laws
in your state as well as the homeschooling laws. Most states
do allow parents to hire tutors full or part-time, but it is
wise to check. Usually the parents still have to comply with
the homeschool regulations. In fact, we "out source"
quite a bit of our children's education: for instruction in a
sport, fine arts, and a variety of interesting learning activities.
I have a great many of the homeschooling laws listed on this
site. Some even include tutoring information. Usually I have
a link to the state site's version of the law. If not, look on
both your state's home page and the page for the Department of
Education. What you are looking for is exemptions from compulsory
attendance. Tutoring usually falls under this category.
Check with your CPA about the best way to set up your business
for tax purposes. There is sometimes a big tax break if you set
up a room in your home just for your business. You may want to
set up your business as a "home day care facility"
in order to be eligible for daycare
grants and tax breaks. Many good home day care providers
also educate their charges. Talk to a few home daycare providers
in your town.
Your CPA may recommend that you set yourself up as a small
business. Check at your city hall on how to do this in your community.
Some communities are quite concerned about the street traffic
and parking problems you might generate.
Check with your insurance agent to see if you need to upgrade
your personal liability insurance if you intend to supervise
others' children in your home for money. Should a child be injured
in your home while you have accepted a fee for being responsible
for them is considered quite different from a child who is there
as a visiting friend. One teacher making this transition wrote
to tell me that the insurance rider cost her only $20. No big
deal for the security.
If all this seems feasible, you then become either a home
day care center or a private school in the eyes of the legal
system. If the children are of school age, and you are set up
as "day care," then the parents should comply with
the homeschooling notification procedure for your state. If you
are a "private school" the parents need only to inform
their previous school that their children are now attending a
private school. You, as the head of the private school, will
need to send for their transcripts on letter head stationery.
You will need to follow all private school regulations regarding
the keeping of attendance and performance records. In some localities,
you will also have to submit to a fire and building inspection.
This may entail remodeling your home, providing boy and girl
bathrooms, two exits to the room used for education, having a
ramp for the handicapped. The list can get quite absurd for someone
intending to have six healthy pupils quite used to sharing a
family bathroom.
If setting yourself up as a private business seems undaunting,
consider become an employee of an umbrella
school, a recreation department, library, charter school,
learning center or distance learning
program. Some of these hire local facilitators, and working
for them would give you legal protections and a regular income
that private tutoring wouldn't. There are some links for tutoring
networks at the end of this article.
Advertising
Regarding posting to Social Networks. Email the moderator off-list and ask if it
is OK, or ask if she will post your offer to tutor. If she approves
it, post one very polite message on the homeschool message board
stating the service you have to offer. Do not mention a fee,
but ask those interested to contact you. Offer to set up a bookclub
(or science club, etc.) and moderate it for homeschoolers of
a certain age group you enjoy.
Post your service on a A2Z Homeschool State Group,
where parents come to look for help. All replies go to the poster.
You should make sure the subject header tells where you are and
what you wish to teach. The body of the message may be as long
as you need it to be. All words you use will be searchable from
the message area, so make sure you fully describe what you want
to do.
Look on my state or province
page for your area and see what conferences are coming up.
Contact the coordinator of the event. Offer yourself as a speaker
or session moderator on a specific topic of learning and teach
the parents how to instruct your subject. Ask if you may distribute
a flyer in their handout packet.
Facing Downright
Hostility
Do understand that a whole lot of homeschoolers started homeschooling
after an extremely trying time with a single public school teacher.
This does make them a wary lot in general: they never again want
to put their child in such
a situation again. Some may get downright abrasive toward
you. Can you face it?
If you mention you have children, you're sure to be asked,
"Why don't you homeschool?" How would you answer this
question? I'd just say, "I feel we are doing what is best
for our family and child and his learning styles and needs at
this time." Period. (I know you've probably heard the "I"
message psychology before. Sometimes we tend to forget to use
it when confronted suddenly.) I find that reassuring the other
parent that you feel they are doing the same, usually puts the
damper on further criticism. (It is just hard when someone is
complaining bitterly about their child's learning situation and
refuses to look at alternatives, but some people are just like
that: stonewallers.)
What homeschoolers are trying to figure out about you is:
do you really understand what "natural
learning" is? Are you going to be able to cope with
children who have been allowed this kind of free spirited learning
for a good deal of their lives? These kids are usually quite
capable of accepting a "give and take, hands-on" kind
of learning experience, but often rebel at "top down"
instruction. Picture yourself in a grad school seminar, only
the students are 8 years old, and you get the idea of what a
homeschool "class" may be like. These kids are used
to being treated with the same respect as grad students, maybe
a little more.
We homeschoolers talk a lot about "deschooling"
or "decompression"
when we first leave the school system. You'll have to go through
this as well. It is a lot like detoxing an alcoholic. You've
been addicted to an unnatural form of learning, and though you
now sense there is a better way, you may need to take some time
to actually be able to let yourself "get with the flow,"
as the New Agers among us might say. Veteran homeschoolers know
you are in this stage and may be sort of laughing behind your
back. Ask them for help deschooling. It will throw them off that
you know the lingo.
In Conclusion
I hope this essay gives you some realistic ideas. I cannot
help you with pricing, as this must be modified according to
the going rates for similar services in your area. I do know
that the school system is so bad in our area, our city of 65,000
supports four jam-packed tutoring centers. Factories are building
custom cars and dolls, publishers will print one book just for
you, so people are coming to expect and demand custom education.
If you are willing to experiment with a "community
resource center" you may be on to something that will
grow.
Working with homeschoolers in a natural learning situation
can be a fun and rewarding occupation. It takes someone who is
willing to think outside the box and not try to duplicate public
schooling. Get into it with an attitude of "I'll probably
learn as much from these homeschoolers as I hope to teach them."
Plan for contentment and success not stress and failure, and
the possibilities are limitless. We are willing to experiment
with all sorts of joyful and loving forms of education. Just
be willing to prove to us that you are, too.
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