Tuition teachers are NOT the enemy. Bad teachers will be bad teachers, whether in the school system or not. |
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(This post by Mr Kevin Seah first appeared on his English tutoring website on 12 November 2015. It is reproduced with permission.) |
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By Kevin Seah This past year has seen the publication of numerous articles on Singapore’s S$1.1 billion private tuition industry, a significant portion of which paints the tuition industry (and tuition teachers) in a bad light. We have Ryan Ong from The Middle Ground (TMG) saying:  We have The Straits Times with the panic-inducing headline:  And there seems to have arisen a consensus that:  Let me stick my head out and say this: the discussion surrounding our tuition industry  Firstly, any teacher who avoids explaining the whys and wherefores of any interpretation of a text simply isn’t doing his job. As far as I’m concerned, I’d fail a student who gives me a series of interpretations similar to that mentioned in the article (e.g. Hamlet is indecisive; Hamlet is insane; the ghost is important) without actually being able to show me why. Furthermore, a good literature teacher should push his students to think clearly about their texts, hopefully getting the kids to engage with their texts on a personal level. After all, students should react with some mental agility to whatever question they choose to respond to in an examination. And it IS possible to push students in that direction within a few lessons (it would then be up to them to build on what they have been taught). What the TMG article quoted above is describing is simply bad teaching. And try not to be surprised, but bad teachers DO exist in our school system as well. I will be the first to admit that I’m an imperfect teacher, and that even after years of teaching, I still feel like I’m figuring things out. But there needs to be some level of professionalism, and a tutor who stops at the point of giving CliffsNotes material is just… a waste of money. At this juncture, I should note that the writer of the TMG article was probably being disingenuous to get his clicks, since he admits that there is the “occasional inspired tutor”. But let’s take a step back and just acknowledge that there are good and bad teachers. There are effective and ineffective teachers. There are teachers who make you hate a subject, and there are those who make you love a subject. And that’s all tuition teachers are — teachers with all our strengths and imperfections. I hold several strong memories of a particular teacher who taught my class very effectively:  And guess what? He is now also a tuition teacher. Some of the doom-and-gloom articles about the tuition industry have one thing right: that we should be concerned about the size of the industry. However, we cannot look at the tuition industry in isolation, away from the school system and the structure of society itself. It may be a topic for another time, but the way the tuition industry is structured is indicative of a massive wealth and income gap in Singapore. The median monthly amount that families spend on tuition is apparently between S$155 to S$260 (source). The bulk of tuition teachers who give one-on-one lessons charge considerably more than that. So we are in a situation where some families are able to spend much, much more on private tuition than the average family. We see the same kinds of mathematical distributions when we look at household incomes in Singapore (see especially Chart 5 on p6 of the document). The moaning and groaning over the tuition industry is, I suspect, just a symptom of the larger dissatisfaction that our society has over the wealth and income gap. So if we’re going to examine the tuition industry carefully, please, let’s not do it with blinkers on. Let’s not fool ourselves about the extent of the problems in our world today. Tuition teachers are not the enemy. About The Author Mr Kevin Seah is an unconventional tutor who believes in equipping students not just with the skills required to ace exams, but also with the skills necessary to becoming a successful adult. His aim is to give students the language and thinking skills that can help them find their way through the modern world, and as a result, enable them to do well in school. To learn more about his tutoring services, visit his website at English Classes And Essays. |
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YOU MAY WISH TO READ: The tuition industry is supported by parentocracy. 4 downright unethical ways tuition agencies are taking advantage of you The Singapore Education System is Quite Beyond Repair |
