10th August 2011 9:00
By Blue Tutors
Parents need to stop pressurising their children when it comes to schoolwork, and not jump to hire a tutor whenever the top grade isn’t achieved. That’s the message from a 12 year old in Sydney, who feels that far too many students today receive private tuition, and never learn to stand on their own two feet.
Joel Reines is only a few months from the HSC exam, attends a good private school, and actually already has tutors for each of the five subject areas he is studying. However, he says that the mere mention of needing to work at something he didn’t understand, caused his mother to begin dialing the local tuition agency to arrange more private lessons. Joel doesn’t believe that this is an appropriate reaction, and thinks it’s indicative of the tuition culture that accompanies the modern school system.
Joel recalls going to friends’ houses to play, and being told that he and a friend could spend half an hour playing, provided that the following thirty minutes was spent studying. This isn’t unusual, even though most people would agree with Joel that kids should be allowed to have fun when they’re young, and not be made to fixate on exam results from such an early age.
The major criticism levelled at private tuition is the creation of a reliance on tutors. Students are no longer learning for themselves, and need a tutor next to them to even begin to read and understand anything. Joel doesn’t believe that private tuition will necessarily improve a student’s marks dramatically, and that parents need to ask themselves whether they their child to always use the crutch of a private tutor, rather than learning to walk properly on their own.