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Who’s Teaching Basics Now?

While surfing teaching job possibilities on various websites over the past few years, I have come across an interesting phenomenon. An increasing number of posts are from professional tutoring agencies. This phenomenon is validated by Ms Hurley’s submission. Private tutoring has long been available, but never before have so many business enterprises advertised their services. In Ontario, in addition to the growing number of Kumon Centres, we have Sylvan and Oxford and Grade Expectations and Expectations Unlimited and so on and so on.

Our Ontario Curriculum, like the International Baccalaureate Organization’s Primary and Middle Years Programs, claims ‘world class standards’.

Having been the “Special Educational Needs” support teacher in two international schools as well as in Ontario, I am beginning to see a symbiotic relationship between these “world class” curricula and professional tutoring services. Kumon works well to bolster the skills of many children. Their success makes it possible for the child to survive in a ‘high standards’, (dare I say ‘high class’) institution. The school looks good, the parents are proud, Kumon continues to expand its market share. Everybody benefits, right?

Well, just a minute, now. For years I have considered starting my own professional tutoring service but have always stalled, realizing that the children who most need my type of intervention, are the ones who will be least able to afford my services. Instead, I have tried to argue on their behalf to ensure that Ministry funds actually trickle down to where they belong. Having failed miserably in that effort, I have distracted myself by teaching overseas again.

China has been a fascinating location, but the pattern is once again emerging; more than half my students receive additional home tutoring – many from Kumon.

Now, that is all well and good if, like the clientel of international private schools, one can expect a company or government to pick up the tab for education while abroad. But at home in Ontario, is it reasonable to expect parents to pay for additional tutoring at such an alarming rate?

Isn’t there something seriously wrong with an education system that forces its clientele to seek highly-structured educational support elsewhere? Kumon provides repetitive practice in the basics skills that are supposedly at the core of our curriculum. The fact that Kumon is so successful with so many only proves that we could be reaching far more children by rethinking whatever it is we are doing in our classrooms now. Kumon is not a complicated technique; it is founded upon what we have always known and what MRI science is confirming: the brain masters skills through repetition and practice. Making it meaningful and contextual is an undeniable added bonus.

Our current curriculum is dangerously close to creating an elitist system in which only those who can afford additional tutoring can succeed.

Who is teaching your child basics?