August 29, 2010

Weekend Reflections- The need for tution

Tution centres are a plenty here. A recent report which I read stated that there are 500+ different centres here on the island. It seems to be a roaring good business as many parents are supportive of having tutors for their children in bid to improve/maintain their academic grades in school.

There are many different classes available for a wide age range of kids in various subjects.

Some tution classes start as early as 2-3 years old which profess that they are able to teach your child to read. I am very skeptical about their claims that they were able to make a 3 year old read as their “advertisement” does not qualify what their meaning of “read” equates to. Does it mean reading independently 3-5 sentences of a storybook or just 1 word or sentence after being read the book several times? I personally do not find the claims fantastic as on average a 3 year old should be able to read several words and both of my boys are able to read from 2.5-3years old without such classes.

Many pupils in my class go for tution classes after school and in more than one subject. It is not surprising for a Primary 4 student to have tution in all four subjects- English, Maths, Science and Mother Tongue (Chinese). Some parents even sent them to tution centres far away from their houses as they have heard that that particular centre produces “results”. I haven’t seen a marked improvement in their grades even though they have had such additional help in their subjects.

It is true that the teacher doesn’t have time to go through certain concepts 1-1 in class as we have 101 things to do besides just teaching in our job scope.The irony is that some of my colleagues do send their own kids for tution as they are unable to find the time to personally coach their own children due to our busy schedule. It’s a real pain that we have to spend so much time giving additional lessons in school to our pupils at the expense of forfeiting the time to personally coach our own kids.

I strongly feel that our own kids should be the one to receive the bulk of our time and coaching instead of the students we teach in school as we do need to be there to be able to groom them in all aspects of their growth.

Some pupils may need the additional help with a tutor but to be totally reliant on one without making the effort to do the learning by themselves is totally wrong.

I’m not doubting the ability of the tutors to help the student in the understanding of the subject. However more then often these pupils get too reliant on the tutor to actually use their own ability to figure out the solution to the complex maths problem or actually think of how to improve on the use of language in their composition writing. They expect to be spoon fed and given the answers and easily give up before really attempting the questions given.

Some of them get very careless in their work as they skim through the questions on the exam paper instead of actually taking the time and effort to read through carefully. They assume that the questions asked are similar to those that they have attempted in their tution centre or with their tutor and that the answer should be the same. While in fact, there maybe a twist on the question and what was required in their answer is different from what assumed.

I know of a few students in my class who have tution for all subjects and are so bogged down with the extra classes after school that they start getting restless in class and do not pay attention when they are taught. They assume that whatever they fail or are not able to grasp in class will be filled in by the tutor later on at home. I find this notion very scary as firstly they should be trying their best to pay attention in class and get any misconceptions cleared instead of being so reliant on external help.

I personally would not want to overload my kids with all these “extra” lessons which I deem unnecessary if one had paid attention and understood the concept the first time around.

In the classroom we have to cater to students with different needs so it is not possible to ensure that every student is able to fully understand what is being taught. I do go through and revise the concepts if the majority find difficulty in it.

I feel that it is really unreasonable for parents to expect the teacher to be able to go through everything with their child one-on-one like a parent to a child. If they really would like their child to have such special attention it would be better if they are personally involved in educating/coaching their child as they would have a better understanding of their own child’s abilities.

It can be extremely frustrating for a child if he is pushed beyond his abilities as he is forced to”live up” to his parents expectation of academic excellence. Sometimes besides giving him pressure in hope that he will perform better the child may simply give up as he feels that it is no point trying.

In his mind he feels that no matter how good or how slight the improvement he has it is still not enough and his “greedy” parents forever want PERFECT grades to show off to the Jones instead of accepting him for his abilities.