Debbie's Tutoring Blog

In general, I have no regrets. Regrets don't help unless you do something about them. But I do have some advice I'd give my younger self if I could.

When I was in my 20s, I went back to (and, eventually graduated with a BA in TV/Radio from another college) college, taking classes at Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in NY. I was working full time in Brooklyn and and living in Lower Manhattan at the time. I would go to work and, after work, I'd take the subway to 34th Street and 6th Avenue, go to eat at a really cool Kosher Vegetarian Restaurant (I was ovo-lacto vegetarian at the time --...

When I was in school, there were no calculators. Adding machines still had rows of numbers and my brother and I (when we were very young) used to love playing with the machine in the office at the Matza company my grandfather was the Rabbi for. When we went to the World's Fair, we were fascinated with the "new" IBM font balls that typed in script. There were no computers (well, there were some huge ones that took up rooms and ran on punch cards, but I never saw one until college), no spell checks, no word processors.

When I was in school, we learned how to add, subtract, multiply and divide...

WyzAnt has been having an essay contest for students. The prize is money toward college. And I started reading the essays. Now, I know math is my best subject, but I do have an eye (and ear) for grammar, and I have also edited writing.

But I digress.... The essays had me thinking of who were my teaching inspirations. As one of the essay writers stated, it's hard to choose just one. (And, to be honest, I've never been able to choose just one of anything.)

I can start with my first grade teacher, Mrs. Seymour. She seemed so caring, so loving. Then there was Mrs. Beerman (in later years, as an...

Over the years, I have had very good experiences as a tutor and, for the most part, my students (the long term students) and I have very good relationships (one of the problems with working through an organization like WyzAnt after double digit years experience as a tutor with dozens of students is that the previous students you worked with can't tell your WyzAnt students how well you worked together, particularly the students who you no longer know how to contact).

But I have had some students who really don't know how to get the most out of working with a tutor. I have tutored many different...

One of the problems of starting up new with a company like WyzAnt is that all the hours I have put into tutoring, all the hours that I continue to put into tutoring (through channels other than WyzAnt) don't help me recruit other students here at WyzAnt. Wyz-that? It's pretty simple. My private students can't tell everyone here at WyzAnt what they think of me.

As I mentioned before, I started tutoring High School. I discovered that, not only was I really good at math (my school gave report card grades in numbers and my high school math average was 97) but I was also very good at helping other...

I began tutoring in High School. I discovered that I have a talent for explaining difficult concepts to my classmates and other schoolmates. My students did better once I began working with them.

When I was in college, I signed up for a program called "Upward Bound". Tutors met with students at three locations -- New Brunswick, Plainfield and Perth Amboy. (One year, my sister joined me, but she never really had the same interest in tutoring that I did). I worked for the "Upward Bound" program for several years and, in the process, worked with many bright, motivated students.

While most...