The aim of this thread is to supply college students in the sciences - that is: maths, physics, chemistry especially - with the information to start as a high school tutor.
DISCLAIMER: I live in the Netherlands. Children aged 12 - 18 get tested regularly in all of their subjects at school. Most children are just lazy as fuck, and will improve solely because of the fact that they spend time on the subject with you.
There are several 'levels' of high school for which you get selected at age 12. I teach kids in the highest level, the one that prepares you for scientific education at a university. The kid staying at this level brings prestige to the parents, especially the rich upper class. This is my main market: rich parents with kids that can't (or won't) do it on their own. They are the ones that pay me the big bucks.
Your mileage in the states or elsewhere may vary, though I expect Western - European countries to be very similar to the Netherlands.
Pros of the job:
- High salary (€25,- per hour is my standard rate, but I ask €30,- on short notice).
- Extremely flexible hours. Just make appointments with your students.
- Can be very rewarding to get an insecure 14 year old back on track.
- Intellectual challenge in some cases - what's making this kid getting low grades?
- You will get all sorts of experience in sending professional mails, making appointments, keeping the customers (the parents) happy. I.e. running a little company.
Cons:
- Can become a drag to teach lazy 18 year olds the same thing over and over again. 14 year olds want to get back on track and actually learn something. 18 year olds just want to get their finals over with and are only interested in the tricks, not the mathematical basis (but this mathematical basis is exactly what will get the 14 yo kids go from a 4 to a 9 in class). We rate 1 - 10 by the way. 1 is just writing your name on the paper, 10 is zero mistakes on test. 6 is considered a C in the states.
- Hard to really get the hours on (at first). This is ideally done as a part time job while you study. I have no experiences doing this 40 hours a week, but it seems impossible because kids go to school from 9 AM - 3 PM each day.
It's not easy to make the money I do, although it's not hard either. Most people I know make somewhere around 10 - 15 euros / hour doing this. But doing a few things right will make you stand out from the science students crowd (which is not all that big, btw; you're in a good market.)
Experience is key. If you're a bad teacher, people will not spread the word. Read books on learning and teaching: Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin, Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. I started out shortly after starting my physics degree at 18 years old. I tutored my neighbor kids before that.
This is paramount: start out in a tutoring company. The guy that runs this kind of company provides the students. He has a marketing plan, probably way better than you can ever achieve, with professional site, posters spread through the country, a automatic paying system, etc. You sign up, and look for students in your area (there will be plenty, trust me) and you work your ass off for, let's say, €12,- an hour. The company keeps the other €12,- or so the customers pay.
Get that experience in. Treat those students as if they're your own. Word will get through that you are a good teacher and there will be kids applying to the company specifically asking for you. Or better yet: the students will come directly to you, in which case you can sit somewhere between the what you earn (€12,-) and what they would have paid for you via the tutoring company (€24,-).
Don't try to 'steal' existing customers from your company in this way. You make yourself vulnerable, very vulnerable, when things turn sour between you and your student.
If you're doing it right (and you're with the right company), there will be all kinds of other stuff going on there besides private tutoring, which is all very hard to pull of on your own. Examples: crash courses for adults for high school subjects, finals training, etc. If you are asked for this, you will get higher pay and experience in front of a classroom of 20 people.
In the meantime, start your own 'business'. I put business in parentheses because I'm not officially registered as a company.
(i) Put yourself online, on sites where services like this are offered. Craigslist type stuff comes to mind. A very good site entry is absolutely necessary here: this is the difference between 2 replies a week and no replies at all.
- put up photo of yourself in serious setting
- optimize the keywords a bit
- briefly state your prior experience, list everything you did at the tutoring company you work at. Then briefly state your learning philosophy. For me this would be: keep 'tricks' to a minimum. Give the students back their self confidence. Get results by working on mathematical foundations. End it with: "if you're interested, please reply by mail", or something along those lines. Don't put up a price, you can negotiate this by mail. This allows you to change the price as demand increases.
- Get 3 or 4 of your current of past students to leave a positive reply on the advert. (this is key).
(ii). Make posters with essentially the same information and hang them inside schools (in the study areas, or in the canteen). Get to know to guy that runs the study area. Introduce yourself to him, offer to explain what your plan is. I got ridiculous amounts of replies from a certain school at some point, because this guy was forwarding everyone that needed tutoring to me.
(iii). Play it upfront with the company you're working for. Just tell them you will do you private lessons on your own from now on, but are still happy to help out in the group-setting courses the company offers.
General tips
- When scheduling an appointment, include this line: "the lessons are given at xyz library". Every one of them will try to get you to teach at their home if you're not quick, but don't do it, it'll cost you traveling time. Framed in the above way, almost everyone will just comply and you can teach at a library near you. You can teach a whole saturday this way by letting the students come in one for one.
- Offer some kind of discount for longer hours, for example 45 euros for two hours, inspiring parents to buy longer hours. Your work will be spread out over the week (maybe a few week nights and a weekend day) and 1 hour or 2 doesn't make a whole lot of a mental difference to me, while the money almost doubles.
- This is an extremely flexible job, so expect you need to be flexible yourself. People will flake on you for all kinds of reasons, best is to be kind but assertive in that you don't like to be flaked on. But this never completely stops.
- When you're full and you keep getting new requests, supply the parents of this new kid with the email adress of some other teacher you know, but leave everything else to them (no negotiating price for this guy). You could even ask some fixed amount of cash to supply other teachers with students, although I don't. (it's been offered, but if the other teacher is your fellow student, refuse to take the money, it's not worth it).
DISCLAIMER: I live in the Netherlands. Children aged 12 - 18 get tested regularly in all of their subjects at school. Most children are just lazy as fuck, and will improve solely because of the fact that they spend time on the subject with you.
There are several 'levels' of high school for which you get selected at age 12. I teach kids in the highest level, the one that prepares you for scientific education at a university. The kid staying at this level brings prestige to the parents, especially the rich upper class. This is my main market: rich parents with kids that can't (or won't) do it on their own. They are the ones that pay me the big bucks.
Your mileage in the states or elsewhere may vary, though I expect Western - European countries to be very similar to the Netherlands.
Pros of the job:
- High salary (€25,- per hour is my standard rate, but I ask €30,- on short notice).
- Extremely flexible hours. Just make appointments with your students.
- Can be very rewarding to get an insecure 14 year old back on track.
- Intellectual challenge in some cases - what's making this kid getting low grades?
- You will get all sorts of experience in sending professional mails, making appointments, keeping the customers (the parents) happy. I.e. running a little company.
Cons:
- Can become a drag to teach lazy 18 year olds the same thing over and over again. 14 year olds want to get back on track and actually learn something. 18 year olds just want to get their finals over with and are only interested in the tricks, not the mathematical basis (but this mathematical basis is exactly what will get the 14 yo kids go from a 4 to a 9 in class). We rate 1 - 10 by the way. 1 is just writing your name on the paper, 10 is zero mistakes on test. 6 is considered a C in the states.
- Hard to really get the hours on (at first). This is ideally done as a part time job while you study. I have no experiences doing this 40 hours a week, but it seems impossible because kids go to school from 9 AM - 3 PM each day.
It's not easy to make the money I do, although it's not hard either. Most people I know make somewhere around 10 - 15 euros / hour doing this. But doing a few things right will make you stand out from the science students crowd (which is not all that big, btw; you're in a good market.)
Experience is key. If you're a bad teacher, people will not spread the word. Read books on learning and teaching: Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin, Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. I started out shortly after starting my physics degree at 18 years old. I tutored my neighbor kids before that.
This is paramount: start out in a tutoring company. The guy that runs this kind of company provides the students. He has a marketing plan, probably way better than you can ever achieve, with professional site, posters spread through the country, a automatic paying system, etc. You sign up, and look for students in your area (there will be plenty, trust me) and you work your ass off for, let's say, €12,- an hour. The company keeps the other €12,- or so the customers pay.
Get that experience in. Treat those students as if they're your own. Word will get through that you are a good teacher and there will be kids applying to the company specifically asking for you. Or better yet: the students will come directly to you, in which case you can sit somewhere between the what you earn (€12,-) and what they would have paid for you via the tutoring company (€24,-).
Don't try to 'steal' existing customers from your company in this way. You make yourself vulnerable, very vulnerable, when things turn sour between you and your student.
If you're doing it right (and you're with the right company), there will be all kinds of other stuff going on there besides private tutoring, which is all very hard to pull of on your own. Examples: crash courses for adults for high school subjects, finals training, etc. If you are asked for this, you will get higher pay and experience in front of a classroom of 20 people.
In the meantime, start your own 'business'. I put business in parentheses because I'm not officially registered as a company.
(i) Put yourself online, on sites where services like this are offered. Craigslist type stuff comes to mind. A very good site entry is absolutely necessary here: this is the difference between 2 replies a week and no replies at all.
- put up photo of yourself in serious setting
- optimize the keywords a bit
- briefly state your prior experience, list everything you did at the tutoring company you work at. Then briefly state your learning philosophy. For me this would be: keep 'tricks' to a minimum. Give the students back their self confidence. Get results by working on mathematical foundations. End it with: "if you're interested, please reply by mail", or something along those lines. Don't put up a price, you can negotiate this by mail. This allows you to change the price as demand increases.
- Get 3 or 4 of your current of past students to leave a positive reply on the advert. (this is key).
(ii). Make posters with essentially the same information and hang them inside schools (in the study areas, or in the canteen). Get to know to guy that runs the study area. Introduce yourself to him, offer to explain what your plan is. I got ridiculous amounts of replies from a certain school at some point, because this guy was forwarding everyone that needed tutoring to me.
(iii). Play it upfront with the company you're working for. Just tell them you will do you private lessons on your own from now on, but are still happy to help out in the group-setting courses the company offers.
General tips
- When scheduling an appointment, include this line: "the lessons are given at xyz library". Every one of them will try to get you to teach at their home if you're not quick, but don't do it, it'll cost you traveling time. Framed in the above way, almost everyone will just comply and you can teach at a library near you. You can teach a whole saturday this way by letting the students come in one for one.
- Offer some kind of discount for longer hours, for example 45 euros for two hours, inspiring parents to buy longer hours. Your work will be spread out over the week (maybe a few week nights and a weekend day) and 1 hour or 2 doesn't make a whole lot of a mental difference to me, while the money almost doubles.
- This is an extremely flexible job, so expect you need to be flexible yourself. People will flake on you for all kinds of reasons, best is to be kind but assertive in that you don't like to be flaked on. But this never completely stops.
- When you're full and you keep getting new requests, supply the parents of this new kid with the email adress of some other teacher you know, but leave everything else to them (no negotiating price for this guy). You could even ask some fixed amount of cash to supply other teachers with students, although I don't. (it's been offered, but if the other teacher is your fellow student, refuse to take the money, it's not worth it).
