Tutoring Website

Kingdom Animalia, 'cause boobies, we got em.

Sometime I have great ideas for websites, my last one was Congressman Drinking Bird, a website where you can see just how well your congresspersons match you on the issues by pitting them up against a randomly voting drinking bird. My latest one is a tutoring website. I don't have a catchy name for it, but I do have some great ideas.

The genesis of the idea was for an official website for clients to find tutors. Furthermore, if the tutor set it up to work this way, they could auction off their sessions to the highest bidder. This would work well for a tutor who worked out of a public area, like a library. It could also just work as a place for a tutor to post their schedule and their subjects so that clients can find someone who works for them. Another way to connect clients and tutors would be that if a client couldn't find someone to suit their needs and schedule, they could post a bounty for tutors to find. The last way I can imagine would be to hold a webcam tutoring session.

The site would have a rating system, so that people would know if a tutor was bad. Furthermore, the tutors would also (secretly) rate the students to know if the student was trouble or not. They could also post comments about the student's problem areas and progress that would be visible by the other tutors. 

As with anything like this, there are issues. Warnings would have to be posted and reminded about regarding safety, such as meeting in public places or at your own residence and having adult supervision.

There is the issue of monetization. Ads are a definite way to monetize. Centralized tutoring services (such as Sylvan) could advertise on the site. Textbook/ebook sales are another definite way to generate revenue. The other way would be to have payment be handled by the website and have a commission for each session plus maybe a monthly fee for the tutors (only if they book a session that month, to remove the barrier to entry). 

The risk with handling the money is that now the site becomes responsible for it. If the tutor doesn't show up, they should be paid. If the student doesn't show up (without canceling ahead of time) then the tutor should still be paid. A system would have to be put into place to verify that the tutoring session happened/didn't happen and why. My best idea would be to have an email be sent to the tutor that, when opened, would have a link to the site. Once there, the student or parent would have to enter a special code/password to verify their attendance. I still don't have the logistics of it worked out so that it's foolproof. Another is to have some sort of geolocation tied to IP addresses or maybe a smartphone app tied to the GPS to verify locations. It's rough idea.

Tutoring

Tutoring has been one of the most personally frustrating things I've ever done. Especially tutoring where I have been tutoring. There have been so many times where the student just doesn't care (especially with older students). I just want to tell these kids to stop wasting their parent's money and get to work. I want to get mad at them, set them straight. I want to tell their parents that they just aren't trying and they would be better off withdrawing their child.

Imagine that you're teaching an ACT mathematics course and one of the (or several) students don't even bring a calculator. They can afford the tutoring, so you know they have one. They just don't care. They bring the minimum, their book, don't do the homework you assign them and don't ask questions when you know they don't understand. If they just cared, they'd do so much better.

Then there are the little kids, who are so nice and happy, but because they're so happy they're energetic, talkative and can't focus. You ask them to calm down and do their work, but they can't. They're so cute and you don't want to make them sad. You just want to find some way to teach them about when it's appropriate to be talkative and energetic and when it's time to calm down and follow instructions.

Then there are the kids who you can tell have a bad home life. I had this one child who I could tell had an unhappy time at home. He told me as such. His tutoring was paid for by his grandmother. He expressed much anger about his father. From what I could tell of what he told me, it seemed like his grandmother cared more about him than his parents did.

You get children who you just wonder how things would be different if one of their parents just spent a half hour a day working with them on math, or reading, or spelling. You wonder how much better it would be if their parents just spent some time working with them. Sometimes I wonder if some of these kids parents ever read to them. Education isn't just the school's problem. No school can do everything that's needed to ensure that your child grows up intelligent. You have to take some responsibility yourself. You have to put more effort into your child's education than just dropping them off, picking them up, and going to parent/teacher conferences. I don't get how some of these parents can drive over an hour to get there and to get back, spend a great deal of money, and yet can't just save their time and money by helping their own child.

When it comes to the programs, you're hamstrung. I sit there for hours with the kids and I know exactly what we should be doing and what these kids need the most to get better, but I have to follow the lessons that have been laid out for me because that has been what's prescribed. Because that's their proven method. Because that's my job.

I love these kids, even the assholes. I want nothing more for them than to get over their educational problems and succeed as students and eventually as adults and I get so frustrated. I get frustrated because some of them don't care. I get frustrated because I can't do enough to help them. I get frustrated because some of them are so nice and I just want the best for them.

It's exhausting.