Author Archives: admin

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Tips When Motivating Children to Love Education

Category : Parents and Student

Children at their earliest ages should learn and realize the importance of education to their lives. However, there are just some kids who try to resist the norm and insist on doing things their way. How could you motivate your children or teens to treat education as a necessary preparation for their future? Here are some practical and proven effective guidelines.

Teach the value of education early in a child’s life. Children are naturally curious and observant. They may be wondering why you love reading books or magazines. Tell them that they need to learn to read to be able to also share such enjoyment. It would help if you would tell your children on a daily basis how important getting a good education is in attaining goals and dreams in life.

Be creative when teaching children during their formative years. If you are not a teacher in profession, you could still strive to be an effective home tutor to your kids. You see, as a parent, you should also learn how to make your children enjoy learning and studying. You could impose play and fun activities at home to make children realize that learning is not as boring as they think.

Take your children to educational yet fun parks. Instead of taking them to the malls to stroll, why not take them to a museum, a science center, or a zoo for a change? When they get more curious about things, tell them they would know more if they would continue getting education. This strategy would certainly make them more motivated to learn and study.

Introduce the computer to children. Computers never fail to amaze people, especially young children. It seems that this is a computer generation. Of course, emphasize to your kids that they could not in any way exploit the potential of computers and the Internet without getting necessary education. In no time, you would hear them asking you how they could learn more. By that time, you should realize that the ball is in your hands.
Take your children to the streets where there are vagabonds and beggars. This may not sound very nice, but you could tell your children they could end up like those unfortunate people if they fail to get necessary education. You could surely instantly see the frights in their faces, for sure.

How about applying education or learning to daily activities? You could incorporate mathematics to daily tasks and situations. Their love for learning could start if you rely on them in doing specific tasks. Incorporate counting, reading, and writing on those simple tasks. For example, you take them to the market and make them buy certain items (like 5 apples, 10 oranges, and the likes). At the end of the day, you could see them get the thrill and satisfaction.

Enroll your children to the most reputable and effective schools. Traditionally, parents treat schooling of children as investments. If you want them to love education, make sure to place them into an environment that would foster comfort, fun, and learning at the same time. Do not hesitate because of high costs. Most of the time, the best and most effective schools call for premium in their quality of education. If it would make your children better individuals, why not spend for it?


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Your Life Schedule And Online Education

Category : Uncategorised

A life schedule is an amazing tool to have at your disposal. It does not require any financial outlay or any special effort because you create your own based on the circumstances of your life at any give time. A life schedule is a very important tool for any individual trying to manage several elements of their life and feel that they do not have enough hours in the day. If you find yourself constantly juggling a family, employment and any number of elements, you can create one to try and organize your life. In fact, it works like any other timetable. You can have day to day planning, but with a difference. You put completion dates of tasks on there as well. You could, for example, put your children reaching the age of eighteen on there, or your planned retirement. You just have to make sure that it displays the goals because you are actually planning for peace and quiet and time to yourself.

Online education can most definitely fit into any given life schedule and enhance it because it symbolises doing something for yourself. An online education can give your future a lift in more ways than one. It can open you up to career progression and thus a pay raise as well as improving your own skills and ensuring that you fulfil your potential. You can add this into your life schedule and plan it around your existing commitments by using the daily planner and then put your graduation date into it as a target completion.

Getting an online education can enhance your prospects infinitely as well as giving you time away from life in general to recuperate. Completing an online degree can be a lot of work, but can give you something else to work for and can exercise a brain that has lay dormant for years because of the hectic nature of being a mother or father, or doing the same thing day in day out in a job that you neither love nor hate. You realise that it is just there as a source of income and you just go because you need to earn to live.

If any of that sounds familiar then you really should take a look at your online education options. There are so many courses out there that can serve a purpose, and it does not have to be a degree, as is commonly thought. There are so many individual online courses out there that only last for a month or so if you only want a short-term break and to do something for yourself. For example, you could try beginners’ creative writing or take a course in some sort of computer related subject. You could learn how to make the most of email or learn code. Whatever the topic, and however long the course lasts for, you can plan it into your life schedule as your me time. It gives you an excuse to get away from everything else life has to throw at you and that can never be a bad thing.

Online education can allow you to shrug off the stresses and strains of modern day life and do something or yourself. It is worth it for that alone. Some of the course may actually be free or available at a minimal cost. They do get more expensive when you choose academic subjects or choose courses that last for more than a couple of months. However, if you are choosing something that may take years to complete, make sure that the dedication is there before you start! Your life schedule does not allow dropping out! You must complete every task that you put on it, so bear that in mind!


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Giving Your Students an Appreciation of the Arts

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Category : Tutor FAQ

When you set out to become a teacher, it isn’t always enough just to teach a rote set of knowledge. You want to give your students an appreciation for the each knowledge area so they not only know things and how to do things, they also understand the history behind the knowledge they have and have an ability to appreciate the nuances of what they have learned. There may be no area of learning that this concept applies to more than art.

By art, we mean the arts which may include music, vocal interpretation, creative writing and the visual arts. Now in many schools, art programs have gone by the wayside due to budget cuts. This is even more of a reason that if you want to learn to teach the arts to your students, you should come to the task with enthusiasm and some creative thinking so you can take advantage of this time when you can offer lessons in artistic development and appreciation.

Perhaps the biggest challenge of offering art classes as part of the curriculum at the school where you teach is to get kids who may not think they have artistic talent to take the course. In most cases art classes are not required but you still want to be able to touch as much as the student body as possible with an appreciation of the arts and give everyone a chance to take a stab at making a bit of art themselves.

Much of the work that will go into letting kids know its ok to take art even if they do not feel they have artistic talent comes from the attitude of the teacher. Too often art teachers send the message that they expect every student to show noticeable artistic talent and that their grade may depend on their ability to produce art that can be judged as “good” by the teacher.

This creates huge stress in the students because nobody can just “become artistic.” And sending that message defeats the purpose of offering a program in the arts to the students at your school in first place. But if you can encourage a spirit of play and exploration so that even students with no artistic talent at all are willing to take the class just to “give it a try”, learning how art is made by making some of their own will be an enriching experience that may instill a love of art in the student that could last a lifetime.

In the movie The Music Man, the professor got two tone deaf children to sing “I love music mommy” as part of his effort to bring band music to a small town in Iowa. The pride those children and their parents showed more than offset that the song they offered to their portents was pretty unrecognizable as real music. But that scene is instructive in what you want to achieve in your students by giving them a chance to learn to create art with no regard for their talent one way or another. And don’t be surprised if a student takes home a perfectly hideous artwork with pride and that piece of art becoming a precious heirloom for that family not because it is good art but because it is an expression of artistic feeling from a child who wanted to try something new and did it.

Along with giving our students the basic instructions in how to create works of art, don’t miss out on the opportunity to give them a basic education in art history and art appreciation. This may be the greatest gift your art classes can give a child. If they come from your class with an awareness of why Michelangelo is one of the greatest artists of all time, that is a part of our cultural knowledge that will demonstrate that this child has been given a broad and well rounded education.

Teaching art and art approbation can be one of the most fulfilling forms of teaching that you can offer to the next generation. Not only will the children have a lot of fun discovering the artists inside them, you will have a great time showing that side to them as well. And all of that fun will make them better people which, after all, is the goal of being an educator in the first place.


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Teaching With Powerpoint

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Category : Tutor FAQ

The software tool, Microsoft PowerPoint is one of the most versatile tools that the huge software giant has given to us. Business has already discovered the power of this amazing tool. But there are a lot of lessons plans that would benefit from the tools and resources that PowerPoint can offer to make your lessons more fun and interesting for your students. But you have to know how to use it for maximum advantage even before you start designing your slide slow.

Almost everybody has seen PowerPoint used and witnessed what a fun and creative presentation tool it is. You can take classes to learn how to use PowerPoint and to tap the power of the amazing animation and graphics tools it has to present information to your students. This is why PowerPoint is such a great tool for teaching. It gives you the chance to supplement what might have been a boring lecture with some colorful and quickly moving slides that will keep your kids riveted throughout your presentation.

PowerPoint is also easy to use. The genius of Microsoft is that they do facilitate us in using this great tool by making it so easy to take advantage of all of PowerPoint’s fantastic tools. In a classroom setting, PowerPoint alone could represent one of the biggest revolutions in how to present information to students in a long time. But it’s a good idea to think through how to use the tool and have some ground rules for how to use it so you get the maximum value from PowerPoint without becoming abusive of its powers.

When designing the way you will use PowerPoint as a teaching tool, don’t give in to the temptation to let the slideshow do all the work of teaching for you. Remember that PowerPoint is great as long as it is a supplement to your lecture or presentation to your students. The best kind of PowerPoint slide presentation uses bullet triggers to take you through your lecture but you do all the work of actually teaching your students. When it comes to putting a large amount of information on a PowerPoint slide, in a word, don’t. This will lead to reading the slide presentation to your students which will become boring causing you to lose the “punch” you hoped PowerPoint would bring to this lesson plan.

Another tip when working with PowerPoint in an educational setting is to never turn your back on your students. You need to have eye contact with them at all times when you are teaching. So know your presentation well so you don’t have to turn and look at the screen during the course of the lesson.

PowerPoint gives you the ability to use a timer fiction so the slides change on their own after a set period of time. This is a slick function but one that few actually use. And in your setting of trying to integrate PowerPoint into your teaching, you should avoid the timer function as well. The only way this function can work is if you are in a teaching situation where there is no chance there will be an interruption or a delay. And since in a classroom setting you can almost guarantee interruptions in your presentation, the timer function then would become your worst enemy rather than a good tool to help you.

Maintain a consistency to the design of your PowerPoint slides. This means using one single color or background scheme for the entire show. Consistency also applies to the motion of bulleted lists. There are dozens of presentation styles for bulleted lists that PowerPoint supports. You can have your bullet points fly in from the side, bounce in or fade in from nothing to something and then fade away again.

Avoid the temptation to use a different effect on each slide. By establishing one text management strategy, you will avoid creating a PowerPoint lesson that is distracting and disjointed. And by using common sense and good advice in how to put together your PowerPoint lesson plan, you will create a resource for that lesson that can be a valuable part of your teaching arsenal for years to come.


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Decorum in Tutoring

Category : Tutors

One reason that many if not most tutors go into tutoring in the first place is that you have a love of children or of youth and you not only love tutoring them but you love hanging around with them.  Tutors are very often driven by an inner passion for their students and for the subject matter that is their primary reason for showing up to teach the children of others in the first place.  It takes that kind of passion to overcome the many obstacles, difficulties and roadblocks that are thrown in the way of the tutoring process not to mention the low pay.

As a result tutors as a rule tend to be people driven more by passion and values than by money or even career advancement.  Tutoring is a profession where you will see a tutor work for decades just tutoring algebra to 7th graders and never moving on.  He or she is not stuck at that job level.  That is just the nature of the tutoring profession because tutors at heart are driven to teach. 

But it is important to know about decorum in tutoring as well. You enjoy your students and that warm relationship between tutor and student creates the chemistry that makes class time work so well.  But there are limits to how much you can show your affection and areas you need to be aware of to avoid any appearance of impropriety between tutor and student.  Some rules of behavior that must become as much a part of how you tick as your lesson plans and grading system are…

.               Limit your expressions of friendliness to smiles and supportive statements about the student academically.  Never compliment how  a student looks or imply that you like or love a student even though the act of tutoring does generate warm relationships and emotions about your kids.

.               If at all possible, never touch a student.  This is a difficult rule to follow because the very act of being in the same classroom with 20-30 students for hours at a time makes physical contact hard to avoid.  But limit intentional contact especially if it is to show affection.  It can be misinterpreted way too easily.

.               Watch your eyes, especially male tutors and especially in the junior high and high school grade levels.  Students are very aware of the physical picture they present to the world.  It is especially difficult to mind this rule when the girls in your class dress in a way that draws the eye even if you mean nothing by it.  You have to develop almost a physical discipline to focus your eyes on the faces of the students you teach because even if you are thinking of something else entirely and your eyes rest somewhere that might be misunderstood, that can lead to trouble.

.               Never be alone with a student of either gender.  This is even more for your protection than it is for the protection of the student. 

Many of these kind of decorum rules are to avoid the possibility of being falsely accused of some form of inappropriate behavior. Sadly because there has been widely publicized inappropriate behavior between students and tutors, good tutors everywhere have had to learn to live in this austere way because overzealous parents, fellow tutors, volunteers or even students can see something and decide to make an issue of it.  And once something like that gets started, it is very difficult to stop.


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The Brass Tacks About Tutoring

Like any job, tutoring children is often idealized and romanticized by young people preparing for a career in education.  Then once the reality of what life is like as a tutor hits, it can come as a rude shock.  This does not mean that the ideals and values of tutoring the next generation of youth and the great thrill of seeing a young mind come alive with knowledge are not wonderful and worthy of respect and praise. In truth, anyone who makes it in the field of tutoring must have that idealism that is a deep part of your motivation system because it will be those values that will help you get past the hard times that tutoring, particularly in a public school situation often brings with a job of tutor.

But along with the values and ideals, we need to mix that inner drive with a strong dose of reality so that when you show up for your first day and work through your first year of tutoring, you are not broadsided by some of the challenges and frustrations that lie ahead.  A few moments talking about the brass tacks of a tutoring career can help you prepare for the negatives so they are less potent and less able to stop you from being a success in your tutoring career.

Probably one of the areas of tutoring that often causes high tutor stress and burn out is the level of government regulation and the extent that the administration of a school gets in the way of the tutoring process.  Many times in public school it almost seems like education is of a lesser value than paying attention to rules and regulations and maintaining order and discipline in the school. 

When you come to that tutoring position with priority placed on tutoring students the subject matter at hand and see them begin to excel academically and you find academics taking a back seat to the schools administrative issues, to discipline issues and to what seems to be a nonstop flood of forms and requirements for every governmental program imaginable, that can cause frustration about the job you have taken in that school.

Under funding of education probably ranks second greatest frustration with the working world of tutoring.  This lack of funding is evident in your pay and in how well the classes you need to teach are funded.  You may not have the supplies you need and many tutors actually find themselves buying supplies from their own money just to make sure their tutoring is successful.  That is the contrast between the public’s lack of substantial support for education and your deep commitment to it.  But the funding issue can also result in overcrowding of classrooms because the school cannot afford more classrooms or sufficient number of tutors to handle a high student population. 

The third problem that often broadsides new tutors is that many students are not the angels we wish they would be.  Especially in a public school setting, you will have in every class some students who don’t care about academics and would rather disrupt the class than allow you to teach those who do want to learn.  It takes some real experience and some coaching from experienced tutors in how to handle this kind of student but at least be aware that they will be in your classroom day one and all year long.

It takes some innovative thinking and almost stubborn insistence on staying positive to be a successful tutor under circumstances like this.  But if you keep your focus on the kids and on those moments that do come in each school year when you really connect with students and you see them get excited about what you are sharing, that one moment makes dealing with all of the other frustrations entirely worth it. 


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Good Reasons to be a Tutor

The tutoring profession is a unique career field in a lot of ways.   Because you are taking on the challenge of educating children or teenagers, along way you will become very much a part of their society with all the positive and negatives that go with that.  Its for that reason that before you make even the first step toward making tutoring your career, its good to examine your motivations to make sure you have good reasons to teach.

The downsides of tutoring are well known.  Tutoring historically does not pay well, particularly if you teach at the public school level.  You can find niche situations that pay well like working for a wealthy private school, tutoring or working for a “for profit” tutoring operation.  But by and large, you don’t go into tutoring for the money. 

That said it is also true that if you are a good tutor and your resume is strong, you can expect strong job security.  There is always a need for good tutors.  Unlike going into business, you do not have to make your employer profitable to be a success tutoring.  You are judged in lives and in the results of your tutoring that is evidenced in the grades and strong academics of your students. If you can learn to teach young minds and bring them wisdom and knowledge, you will have a job for life.

Many people go into tutoring because they love the academic environment.  For those who grieved the closing of each school year and who never wanted to leave high school and then college, tutoring lets you take up residence in that part of society that fits your personality so well.  To those who have no idea how the calling to teach works, this seems insane because for many getting out of school a stronger motivation than continuing on in the academic world.  So if you have an affinity for the social setting of a school system and the idea of taking up residence in a culture that the pursuit of knowledge is, at least in theory, the primary goal of the institution, tutoring is for you.

Another motivation many have for going into tutoring is love of your subject matter.  If you have always been passionate about math, history, philosophy, art or physical education, one way to feel fulfillment of your passion is to pass along not only your knowledge about your field of expertise but your passion as well.  This is particularly true of a field of study where there is no direct corollary in the business world such as history or philosophy.  By making a career in academics tutoring the field of knowledge you love and excel at, you keep the legitimacy of that area of knowledge alive by passing it along to the next generation.

If the core reason you love to teach is the love of your subject matter, you do have to be a realist especially if you find yourself tutoring in the public schools.  Don’t go into a classroom of 30 high schoolers and expect every one of them to be come a zealot about your field of expertise as you are.  Yes, from time to time you will light a fire under a kindred spirit and see the light come on about the love of your subject area.  That experience alone can make the sacrifices of tutoring worth it.  But be reconciled that if all you do is at least hold the attention of the students and broaden their knowledge and appreciation of your field of knowledge, for many that is all you can expect.  But you are still an educator and you have done a good thing at even that very basic level.

Tutoring is a calling no matter what your core reasons to teach is.  A true tutor does not go into the field for the money or for a glamorous or exciting career.  The excitement of tutoring is seeing young minds come  alive in class and to take youth people one step further along their path to becoming truly educated individuals.  And if that is your passion and what gets you out of bed each mooring to go to that school and deal with the negatives of a tutoring day, they you have found the right reasons to teach which means you will be successful, well liked and remembered by your students as a great tutor.


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Breaking into the Working World of Tutors

In every college in the country, there are ambitious and starry eyed youngsters who are preparing for a career in tutoring.  At some point that army of graduates will hit the streets to find jobs in the field of tutoring.  What is not often taught in colleges are the real world skills of how to actually find and land a good tutoring job right out of school.  And while there is always a need for good tutors, the new graduate should develop some skills in finding the kind of tutoring job that they always dreamed of so even from that first engagement, their career in tutoring gets off on the right foot.

There is a lot you can do even before graduation day to get your job search moving and to make yourself desirable as a tutor so when school administrators get flooded with applications from newly graduated tutors, you stand out as the one they want to call in for an interview.  One thing you can do at any time during you academic career is to intern as a tutoring assistant and volunteer to teach in underprivileged schools. 

You can teach just a few hours a day and work it around your academic work.  By taking on the working world of tutoring even before you have your degree, you will be able to present yourself to employers post graduation as someone who has real world experience in the classroom and “knows the ropes” of getting through an academic year with real live students.  That is tremendously valuable to a school administrator with a spot to fill because it reduces the concern that a new graduate who has never faced a classroom full of restless children might wash out  when the reality of what tutoring is really like.

Another way to get a jump start on the market before students flood the schools for jobs is to start your search early in your last semester of school.  Schools know by February or March if they will have jobs to fill for the next academic year.  So if you begin your search for a tutoring position in March or April, you can often land an interview or even secure a position for the fall long before many of your contemporaries in school begin their hunt for their first tutoring job.

Becoming proactive like this always gives you the advantage in finding the job you really want rather than just “any job” in the tutoring profession.  Spend some time narrowing down exactly what kind of tutoring position you want and at what level you feel your personality and tutoring style will benefit students the most.  You may do much better with young children than with teenagers or you may wish to focus on high schoolers because they are more intellectually equipped to grasp the subject matter with you.  By knowing well in advance where you want to teach, you can target those kinds of positions in your job search and improve your chances of finding that perfect tutoring job.

You should make the phrase “leave no stone unturned” your motto for hunting up the tutoring jobs that are open in your community.  First of all, be very proactive in your search. Just because you are graduating, even with honors, with your tutoring degree, that doesn’t mean the schools will seek you out with jobs.  So you take the search to them before someone else does.  And in doing so it will be you that gets the premium tutoring positions rather than have to take “what’s left” after the good tutoring positions are snatched up by more aggressive graduates.

There are lots of ways you can flush out those tutoring jobs.  Check the HR or employment offices at the schools you would like to be a part of and keep an eye on their employment bullion boards.  Use the internet wisely, watch the newspaper and even get in touch with placement agencies who are known for placing new tutors. 

But above all, network, network, network.  Use every contact you have and forge new relationships to get the inside scoop on jobs before they even become public.  Networking is the number one best way to find great tutoring positions so you should use it extensively to find a position to get your tutoring career off on a great start toward a great future of success in the field of tutoring.


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Can You Teach as a Tutor if You Are Old?

If you are just preparing to enter the ranks of professional tutors and you are not a recent college graduate, its easy to feel a bit insecure and ask that question, “Can you teach if you are old?” Its a fair question even if you are not so far along in life that you consider yourself to be “old”. But it is easy to feel old if you are a middle aged or senior adult among 20 year olds in teacher college and if the competition for the teaching jobs are kids that could be your own sons or daughters.

There are a lot of jobs where there is a noticeable age bias against older workers. In the business world, sometimes companies prefer to hire younger workers because they work cheap and if they work out, there is such a longer career life ahead of them. But even in the business setting, many forward thinking employers are beginning to realize that the ranks of older workers contain a group of workers who are stable, hard working and devoted employees. So too schools are realizing more and more that hiring an older worker is not a disadvantage at all but that you bring a lot of good with you that the school should be thrilled to have.

If anything the profession of tutoring is a perfect environment for someone who has seen a bit of life and who has matured and perhaps raised children of their own. Tutoring full time while rewarding can be a huge challenge because it is sometimes hard to establish your authority in the class room and there are so many ways for a disruption to hurt the flow of tutoring that is so important to accomplish your academic goals each day. An older worker is less prone to panic about disruptions or sudden problems that might come up as you teach and you have the experience and maturity to handle the problem efficiently without upsetting the rest of the class and get everyone back on task quickly.

It could be that one concern those who hire new tutors might have with an older worker is energy. Younger workers are able to keep up physically with children and they need to know that you won’t tire during a long school day and that you have the physical stamina to get through a school day and come back for more tomorrow. There are a number of ways you can demonstrate that you are in shape and up to the challenge of teaching. You can put on a show of energy and enthusiasm during the interview. Or you could go so far as to offer to substitute teach or be a tutor assistant for a day so the administrator can witness first hand our energy and ability to “keep up” with those kiddos.

There is a good chance that not only will you encounter no age based bias or discrimination from school administrators, you will find that they already have a number of older tutors on staff so they know the value the school gets from that experience and wisdom. But the relationship that may give you more concern is whether the students can accept an older teacher and give you the same respect and regard that they would give to someone just out of college.

It may come as the biggest surprise of them all that children and even teenagers really do not mind older teachers or older people for that matter. After all, to a child, every adult is an older teacher so they may not even notice that you are 20 years older than their last teacher. To a kid, old is old so what’s the difference? Moreover, children have relationships with parents, uncles and aunts and grandparents that are loving and respectful so if they lump you in with those role models, you have it made.

What students don’t like are older people who try to deny that they are old, who are ashamed of their age or who try to act younger than they are. Youth crave honesty. And youth are also quite aware that older age awaits them down the road so the last thing they want to see is you showing shame or discomfort because of your age. By being honest about your age with the kids, they will embrace you easily and you will have no difficulty teaching them.


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Becoming a Truly Professional Tutor

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Category : Uncategorised

There is something so satisfying about working with a true professional in any line of work. When you have a professional on the job in any area of specialization watching that person in action is like watching a work of art. They exude the knowledge, the skill, the devotion to doing a top notch job and the confidence that they are the professional who can do the job that is missing in a lesser talent.

That is the level we all want to reach in the field of tutoring if that is your calling. Not only do you want to be a true professional in your area of specialization which is tutoring, you want your students to notice your professionalism and recognize that it makes a big difference having a professional running the class rather an a lesser talent.

When a professional is on the case, everybody relaxes because they know the job will be done right. In the movie, Pulp Fiction, when the gangsters needed help because of a killing, they called in Mr. Wolf. And Mr. Wolf was well known for being the man that always knows what to do, who moves fast but is as courteous as he is efficient and who knows how to get the job done right. When Mr. Wolf was on the scene, the problem was as good as solved. And even though that movie was a bit grisly and profane, Mr. Wolf is a great example of true professionalism at work.

So how do you show your professionalism as you go about your craft of tutoring? For one thing, you dress the part. Take pride in your wardrobe and present to yourself to your class each day in a garment that says, I came ready to teach so you should come ready to learn. That is what happens when a professional is on the premises. Everybody wants to get on board with the program.

A professional always knows what to do both long range and right now. That means you come prepared. Your lesson plans are in order, your room is prepared and you paperwork is organized so at no time do you have to pause and get yourself together when you are into the process of tutoring your students. This will take some time for you to get to that level of organization when you walk in the door of your classroom the next day. But putting in that hour or two each night so you are that organized not only makes you a better tutor, it lets the students know that this is a professional operation so be ready.

Students, particularly youth and children can tell the difference between someone who knows what they are doing and someone who is floundering. As the saying goes, they can smell fear. It gives young people confidence and a sense of security that you are organized and not only know what you are going to do each moment of the teaching day, you know what they are going to do as well. That is professionalism and it will make a world of difference in how your tutoring goes.

A professional tutor also responds to interruptions and even disturbances calmly because you have seen it before and you know what to do. Of course developing a history in teaching to where you really do know what to do in each circumstance takes time. But if you are completely prepared in every other respect, interruptions won’t throw you because you can address them and be right back to you lesson smoothly and calmly.

A byproduct of being consummately prepared and so well versed in what your lesson plans say and what you are tutoring is that it gives you a calm confidence that frees you up to be relaxed and even humorous with your students. When your students see you smile because everything is going exactly the way you want it to go, they will respond and open up to you because they sense your confidence and they want to see where you are going to take them. And because you are relaxed and at ease, your students are at ease as well and they can ask you questions and interact with you as you teach. And that kind of interactive dialog is what makes the difference in the lives of students and makes you a true professional tutor.