There are many benefits to 1 to 1 education, the main being the ability to absolutely tailor the lessons to the student and be flexible on good and bad days.
For those of you thinking that this makes life easier, think again. There are definite challenges to teaching groups, but one child can still throw the odd spanner in the works, and not always as you would expect.
Never underestimate children. Many think children are somehow dim-witted and only learn what they are taught. They will assume that when a documentary pitched for adults is on TV a pre high school child would be bored or confused by this and not pay attention. I know my son is brilliant and am used to having basic curriculum covering 10% of the lessons at most and build up the rest myself, however I was still guilty of the above.
His current science topic is life cycles. We had the details needing to be covered in the curriculum, gave him the books for that term, done in 1 lesson with a bit of time to spare, including questions and a few fun bits. I decided it could be interesting to see how he coped with a bit of very high level genetics, something schools wouldn't be covering with him for a few years yet, especially as part of it was looking at how butterflies have 2 sets for their seperate life stages. Lesson was planned, estimated time 1 hour 20 minutes, and my wife started the lesson. 20 minutes later I get an email, the entire lesson is done, he knows about DNA and was able to describe the double helix shape and that it contains the instructions on how to build a body. Easily figured out how butterflies would cope with having 2 different body forms, and only surprised by the fact there was DNA in every cell not just one of few in control. He learned a few things but most was him figuring things out not having to be taught.
Be careful how you encourage. I should know this better than most. One thing that rings in my ears from not doing well early PE lessons 'Don't worry, you can't be good at everything.' Intended to make me accept academic prowess should compensate for not compliment physical ability. Reality is it made me think I would never be fit, and I have hated and fought against this most of my adult life.
My son is a perfectionist, liking everything to be right first time, and of course wants to be the best. I told him that he can be good at anything he sets his mind to but no-one can be the best at everything. It would be better to compete with himself than compare to the best at everything and feel disheartened. Supportive and encouraging was the aim, and he seemed relatively happy with the idea especially when I said it was how I am. He is his own person no question, but he is still my son, and unforgiving of himself. A few weeks later he was unhappy at himself again and when I asked why 'I have been able to do this for weeks now, I should be better by now.' not easy to criticise when you see your own behaviour.
Unfortunately you aren't permitted to throttle incompetent teachers.
There were some really great teachers at my son's old school. One I had my doubts about and was proven wrong, being honest I told her and regard her as the best thing that school has ever had.
To my mind the worst teachers puts blame on their students, especially when parents or professionals have told them what needs to be done and they are too lazy to do so. Finding out that your child was literally too scared of them to talk to you about it when under their care makes the blood boil.
As a home tutor you will have to deal with the wreckage they leave behind which can be a child who is ahead of the game and still been told they are not good enough and failing. If a teacher is saying their class is failing, it's fairly obvious that there is only one common denominator, and it's them.
There is an expression, those who can do, those who can't teach. This is very unfair in a number of cases and I do remember some great teachers from my youth who worked hard and I learnt a lot from. They were all aware that knowing the content of the books doesn't make you a teacher, being able to put the knowledge across clearly in a way that would be retained does. Unfortunately there are a number who go to this profession when life after university isn't as easy as they expected it to be and they want a way to get rid of student debt. I am not implying they are the majority and even some of these strive to do the job well. Unfortunately there is a core group who never get over life not being handed to them on a big enough silver platter and these few are generally the worst teachers you could imagine.
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