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Re: Blog Thread IIIb : Look Who's Blogging Now

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Bluesummers:
"Give a man  fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for life."

I see no reason to correct his mistakes for him...how is he going to learn, if you're doing all the work?


I addition, you should bring up the point to his mother that your lesson preparation comes at no charge already...if you were to take more time doing it, you'd need to be compensated. Does she realize that you're only tutoring one child? Maybe she thinks you tutor a while classroom, one kid at a time, and are thus compensated...which you aren't.

Good luck with High Expectations Asian Mom.

pwhodges:
Don't have to be Asian:

My wife tells of the dyslexic maths student at her university (Uni of Surrey, in the UK) last year who asked to use her grant for stuff to help her cope with dyslexia to be used for paying a graduate student to give her extra tutoring.  When she was told that this was not allowed (it's in the written rules), her father wrote to the vice-chancellor of the university to complain.  When he confirmed that it was not allowed, the father wrote to his MP who wrote to the VC, who said it was still not allowed...

Bluesummers:
So, the student wanted to re-appropriate her dyslexia grant money to hire a tutor? I'm not sure I follow...it's grant money apportioned to her use, anyway, why not use it for studies?

Barmymoo:
Because it isn't apportioned to her use, it's apportioned to leveling the playing field so that she isn't disadvantaged by the dyslexia. For instance, for buying a laptop or some kind of equipment that makes it easier to read textbooks (special versions perhaps, I don't know much about dyslexia adjustments). Extra tuition wouldn't level the playing field, it would give an advantage.

It's a bit like when I took a year off due to illness. I wasn't allowed to attend lectures in that year, because that would mean I got to cover the material twice - I could take the year out to recover, so that I was in the same healthy state as the other students, but not repeat the instruction.

The mother does know I'm only tutoring one child, definitely. I think she maybe doesn't realise that it would take a lot of extra time. I hope she'll just accept my response and not try to persuade me. Honestly, if I thought it would be useful then I'd already be doing it as part of the lesson preparation. I don't believe that homework has much value at all, and certainly I don't believe me correcting the homework would. He is ten years old, he isn't going to back over the work he's done to see if he understands why the corrections have been made. If I don't take him through them in person, he'll never look at them again - I know I wouldn't.

I once turned down a tutoring student (after I'd intially accepted, for which I feel guilty) because I didn't feel capable of teaching them, and I didn't feel that they should be being taught. The parent wanted two two-hour sessions a week of english, maths and study skills... for their five year old. In addition to regular school, that is. I cannot sit still for two hours at a time after a full day of school, never mind expecting a five year old to do so.

Pilchard123:
A five-year-old? What happened to letting kids be kids?

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