Monday, April 14, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Who We Are (Concrete Version)
Private tutoring in Manhattan has become an unaffordable luxury. Average rates for tutoring are around $140.00 per hour and often recruit tutors with limited teaching backgrounds (although intelligent and accomplished). Thus, MHT was founded to offer customers an affordable option with results-driven, experienced educators.
We partner with families and students to help them reach their goals. The mission of MHT is to provide a comprehensive tutoring service with a primary focus on student achievement. While offering rates nearly half that of other tutoring agencies, we support students with dynamic tutors and customized services to enable a personalized academic experience. Some of our unique services include the following:
1) 75-minute tutoring sessions to ensure understanding of concepts.
2) Access to additional tutoring from the director to prepare for tests and to receive additional homework help.
3) Supplementary materials such as learning aids, resource books, and motivational tools to encourage learning and achievement.
We recruit our tutors based upon two requirements: a strong personal history of achievement and an extensive background as an educator. Thus, we boast an impressive repertoire of educators who are experts teaching various fields: early childhood education, middle school education, advanced math, science, SAT-prep, literacy, and so on and so forth. Moreover, MHT is committed to compensating tutors fairly at nearly twice the market rate in addition to bonuses rewarded for oustanding performance metrics.
Also, one of our goals is to promote social justice and to embody values that will reflect on our students. During these first months, we aim to partner with various local and national charities and donate to them a percentage of our revenues.
I was asked why parents and students should choose us over other agencies. I am fully confident that other tutoring agencies will also fulfill their needs. But I am confident that MHT will push students beyond their dreams. As corny as that sounds, its how I've always viewed education, both as a student and a teacher. As the director, I am committed to supporting students in a concrete manner (access to additional tutoring whenever/wherever at no extra fee) and in spirit.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Who We Are
Manhattan Home Tutoring, a unique approach to after-school education, primarily focuses on the academic achievement of students.
The other day, a 10th grader left me a voicemail while I was in the middle of another tutoring session. He was struggling with geometry and had an important test the following day. When I called him, he expressed how difficult geometry was for him, but he couldn't pay for a 75-minute session. I looked at my schedule and found that I had no clients in the evening. So, why not. I offered him a free 75-minute tutoring session.
When I sat down with him at a Starbucks near the Lincoln Center, he was confusing the area of a triangle with the circumference of a circle. Three-dimensional shapes made no sense to him. I diagnosed that memorizing and plugging numbers into formulas (his teacher's route to understanding geometry) was not his forte. So, we started with fundamentals and learned the MATH. We tossed the formulas and developed our own by understanding the basic concepts of geometry. We made a list of concepts covered on the next day's test and ensured that he had a firm understanding on each. By the end of the night, I drew bogus shapes, and he easily a) developed formulas to find volume and surface area and b) mathematically explained how he derived his answers.
Our session lasted for two hours. Unfortunately, he can't pay for our services on a consistent basis, but the thrill of helping him understand the MATH was enough. Plus, he was an awesome kid who just needed some additional support.
I asked him to text me after his test to keep me updated. He said he did well! I hope that his teacher recognizes that this student has an amazing potential to learn and achieve, so long as he's given the math in a well-explained conceptual manner.
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