25/04/2023
I largely agree with the broad efficacy of tutoring, but can tutoring replace a standard classroom approach to learning? I see increasingly post-covid students who are not able to learn effectively in a classroom and need regular tutoring to just keep up with the curriculum. Often such students effectively shut off in the classroom, knowing that they will have the content spoon-fed to them on the weekend or after school by their expensive private tutor. The papers over the severe learning loss that many suffered with Covid that is often revealed when they take a standardized math test such as the SAT. "He/She is doing great in school, I don't understand how they could score a 460 math." The reason is that they never learned the math in 9-10th grade that is tested, and rely on tutoring to pass the next module.
When these students go on to university, they will be sorely ill-equipped to take notes effectively in a lecture theatre and will need more individual support to sustain themselves - be it individual tutoring or the (cheating) tool that is chegg.com.
While many of us seek support in our post-academic lives, will these students expect and need to have things eased for them in their professional lives as well?
- Jeremy Craig
