Tutors

[donnashuggy]

I don't know if this is true but I hear a lot about it

For the record my children have never had a tutor, not because I was unwilling, it was offered to them.

I hear stories about children that were tutored heavily in years 11 and 12 and it helped them. But I have heard stories about tutors writing their essays and the list goes on.

My question is, does it create more university dropouts because these students are not really capable of doing the work themselves? Or is that a myth? Am I able to exclude Asian students from the example, as I know someone is bound to mention that they are also heavily tutored and have good success rates of continuing at uni.

[cherry*135]

The PASS classes are good value, crikey (if the tutor is good). Also if they don't clash with other classes. I learnt alot from those.

They offer them for subjects with high failure rate (45% for one subject I did).

Friends of my children who dropped out of Uni did so because they couldn't be bothered.. too much effort, especially if they needed to work p/t as well. 

[i-need-a-martini]

From my experience it doesn't cause them to drop out of uni. But all the students in my uni courses that were tutored (and they were predominantly asian students) came to the degree with terrifically high atar results but they generally sat through university on P grading.

I don't think they knew what hit them.

I had a gorgeous asian girl working for me for a couple of years who had no life because of tutoring. Her tutoring started at 5am in the morning before she went to school. Sure she got top results but at what cost? She hated her career (architecture chosen by her parents) and the only friends she had were other asians in the same boat as she was. She told me she never got to befriend 'normal' kids or learn to socialise apart from study.

The tuturing is rote learning aimed at getting the top HSC scores. It has nothing to do with 'filling in the gaps' due to the poor eduaction system (hence why most tutoring occurs in private/elite schools). It adds no value to their lives.

I won't have my kids tutored. Their education is more important than that.

[cherry*135]

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@crikey*mate wrote:

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@am*3 wrote:

There will always be a small % of 'cheats' at Uni .. plagarism, copying someone elses essay from previous years, having another person write their essay for them (not just by tutors either, by paying someone to write it).. but they are just that a small %.

I don't see any major connection with the cheats and tutoring either.

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all assignments are now run through an online plaigarism checker. If you score more than 10%, then you fail. The 10% allows for the reference list. (It's pretty hard not to plaigaraize a reference, chances are someone else has used it somewhere before.

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Yes, I know that,. but some are so silly (lazy) they still do it!

[**meep**]

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@donnashuggy wrote:

My question is, does it create more university dropouts because these students are not really capable of doing the work themselves?

I guess that is it.

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Again, I base my opinion on the presumption that tutors do not do their work for them.

I don't see how tutoring would create more university dropouts.  I think it creates the opposite.

Apart from the obvious benefits of tutoring such as one on one attention, the ability to ask more questions,  it can also teach the best way to study  that would suit an individual.   Not every student has the same ability to learn.  A tutor can teach the student what methods best suit his ability.  I can only see benefits of extra teaching by tutoring or paying extra for schools where there is opportunity for better learning.

[cherry*135]

Parents get their kids tutored so they have a better chance in getting into Selective Schools as well. 

[i-need-a-martini]

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@donnashuggy wrote:

Have you been past Sydney Boys or Sydney Girls lately am3?

I purposely wanted to leave out Asians, not in a racist way at all. But there is a difference when the culture (generalizing again) encourages many many hours of tutoring and ours does not.

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I think it is a real issue for those schools. Or any elective high school particularly in Sydney.

Cultural cliques are never good for schools and Sydney Boys was quite vocal about it a few years ago. Talking about how the school had lost its spirit and it's community diversity.

But then they started to get high results and the government started flowing in so they went quite about it.

[*crikey*mate*]

Donna, if you go to a local KUMON centre or a Northshore Development Centre, you will see that the students are predominantly Asian. You will also see that the students are very young and been there for a long time.

Both work on an advance stage, not the current school grtade of the child. a vertical system.

In these centres, you will find Aust kids, but they have most often been there a lot shorter time, are rarely working at advanced levels as they generally go for "catch up" once a probl;em shows.

also, once an "aussie kid" has "caught up" they tend to stop. Whereas at this point an asian student works harder.

NDC appaears to be more like the old NSW curriculum.

Many asian students

Go to school

Do at least 2 subjects with KUMON & (each requiring daily homework)

attend NSC on a saturday. 1/2 day in primary. Full day in secondary. subject dependant in senior. (each has homework)

extra study at home.

Once they start, they finish the program. They don't stop when they have "caught up", probably because they were never behind.

It takes an average of 71/2 years fior a student to finish a KUMON subject, which is equivilent to 2 year university math in australia.

It does usually take 12 years to work through NDS, but this is also equivillent to 2 years above the curriculum and has more breadth than Kumon offers. (KUMON only does Math, English, ESL, Kokugo and Japanese in Australia)

[donnashuggy]

I know of plenty  of dropouts that achieved great HSC results, when to private school, were tutored, got into their preferred course. It didn't achieve the opposite for them, perhaps the work ethic was not encouraged at home.

[**meep**]

The tuturing is rote learning aimed at getting the top HSC scores. It has nothing to do with 'filling in the gaps' due to the poor eduaction system

I disagree that it has nothing to do with that.  ( Based on experience.)

[i-need-a-martini]

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@**meep** wrote:

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Apart from the obvious benefits of tutoring such as one on one attention, the ability to ask more questions,  it can also teach the best way to study  that would suit an individual.   Not every student has the same ability to learn.  A tutor can teach the student what methods best suit his ability.  I can only see benefits of extra teaching by tutoring or paying extra for schools where there is opportunity for better learning.

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That's not the way the tutoring system works. Naplan tutoring is a good example of that - it is very specific to passing that test and it is not about educational roundness.

My daughter has remedial tutoring due to learning difficulties. She needs this but I have been told that 90% of teaching at the centre she is at is what they call 'entrance exam' tutoring - either to get the kids into private school of choice or a selective high school. And for the older kids, it is to get them into the uni course of choice. Their advertising material says it upfront.