[HN Gopher] The life of a private tutor (2020)
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The life of a private tutor (2020)
        
       Author : sohkamyung
       Score  : 113 points
       Date   : 2021-07-08 12:25 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
        
       | bagol wrote:
       | Where is the full article?
        
         | tyingq wrote:
         | https://outline.com/PCcptc
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | tzury wrote:
       | One would think that in the internet era, where so much
       | information and knowledge are avaialble online for free, those
       | would disappear.
       | 
       | Apprently not.
        
         | slumdev wrote:
         | A guide is more important than ever. Information is properly
         | assimilated through some mental schema. When teachers talk
         | about teaching people "how to learn", they're talking about
         | helping a student to form those schemata (as well as specific
         | techniques, etc.)
        
         | ip26 wrote:
         | The bigger the deluge of information, the more valuable a guide
         | becomes to navigate it.
        
         | BitwiseFool wrote:
         | There's no way to replicate the engagement that an actual
         | teacher/tutor can provide. Some people can do just fine with
         | self-directed study but I image most people aren't autodidacts.
        
           | lumost wrote:
           | Self-learning also comes with the pitfall that you may
           | optimize for the wrong things.
           | 
           | When it comes to standardized tests/certain career
           | expectations you are expected to have a broad understanding
           | of the orthodox views on the evaluated topics.
        
           | jackson1442 wrote:
           | I tutored for a short stint during my senior year of
           | highschool (graduated in S2020, so this included the
           | pandemic), through my Fall 2020 term at university.
           | 
           | This is pretty much exactly what I experienced. I was a
           | member of an online marketplace, so I wasn't necessarily an
           | "elite" tutor by any means, but I found that most of my
           | students just needed instruction that was more tailored to
           | them. A lot of them were working towards AP exams (computer
           | science), so working with someone who had taken that exam,
           | knew what was on it, and intimately understood how it was
           | graded proved rather valuable, at least from what the parents
           | reported back to me.
        
         | ChuckNorris89 wrote:
         | You can't automate the human interaction out through tech.
         | 
         | That's like expecting coffee vending machines to have made
         | baristas obsolete.
         | 
         | As an adult I can do self study just fine and since I work in
         | tech that's expected of me, but as a kid I was way too thick to
         | learn the school curriculum on my own.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | im3w1l wrote:
         | I think the main value of a tutor is having someone with a
         | mental model of what you know and don't know. This has two
         | important consequences. One: If you are missing a prerequisite
         | piece of knowledge the tutor can easily notice that and fix it.
         | If you were on your own it could be a long hunt for the missing
         | piece. And if you _mis_ understood something, it can take even
         | longer to fix as you don't know that you don't know. Two: The
         | pace can be adjusted so that you practice until you get
         | something, and no longer. Moving at a set pace is frustrating
         | if the pace is too quick, and boring if it is too slow.
        
         | MattGaiser wrote:
         | Knowledge access is hardly the problem.
        
           | burnethtards wrote:
           | Yeah, many engineering and science fields are much more than
           | just software, for example, so it's important to get access
           | to and experience with various hardware equipment and even
           | get to contribute on cutting edge work usually funded by
           | various companies from industry.
        
       | Bayart wrote:
       | Mirror : https://archive.ph/nW0eS
        
       | Cybotron5000 wrote:
       | It's not really the subject of the article, but debating whether
       | tutoring/teaching/education works, as a lot of posts here seem to
       | be (without too much of a scooby what they're talking about, if I
       | may say so...), is really as daft as debating whether eg.
       | computer programming works... Teaching is a real skill and, to
       | say the least, it isn't always easy, especially to pick up as a
       | 'side-hustle'. It has its own learning curve. That goes for both
       | private tuition and teaching in schools/universities. Different
       | teachers/teaching/learning styles suit different pupils. Trying
       | to teach a subject soon shows up whether you really know it well,
       | but you can really know a subject and be terrible at teaching
       | it... I thought what was interesting about the article is that it
       | highlights what can be a problematic power dynamic between
       | parents/tutors, especially if you are inexperienced/unsure of
       | yourself as a tutor/teacher (or financially precarious, as all
       | the tutors/teachers I've ever known are), that is, you can end up
       | pandering to what the parents/pupils think they want (or what a
       | certain curriculum/bureaucracy demands), rather than working in
       | the best, long-term interests of the pupil... But most
       | parents/kids are brilliant and this isn't a problem... Again, it
       | really depends... A lot of practical/intuitive psychology/varied
       | communication skills, patience and understanding are required to
       | be a good teacher IMHO. and again, you get better in these
       | respects over time... There are a heck of a lot of advantages to
       | teaching one-on-one, especially with increasing class
       | sizes/budget cuts in public institutions at least/vastly
       | differing abilities/concentration levels of students... In an
       | ideal world students would understand how lucky/privileged they
       | were to get private tuition, though as you might imagine that's
       | not always the case... Being a great teacher is sometimes
       | unavoidably about 'teaching' more than just the subject you are
       | teaching, if that makes any sense, as is maybe highlighted at the
       | beginning of the article...
        
       | cafard wrote:
       | None of this is particularly new. Tutors and "crammers" make
       | regular appearances in older British fiction. The writer Sidney
       | Smith got his start as tutor to a nobleman's son, and facetiously
       | or otherwise suggested that such work was a good step up to a
       | bishopric (though Smith's clerical career not got past dean).
        
       | trentnix wrote:
       | I only got two paragraphs in before my _THIS IS FICTION_ alarm
       | bells were too loud to ignore.
        
         | cafard wrote:
         | Just over ten years ago, the NY Times had an article about a
         | disappointed parent suing a tutoring company. I forget what her
         | beef was, but she had paid out $35 thousand in the course of a
         | year.
        
           | handrous wrote:
           | That seems entirely plausible. That's in the same territory
           | as boarding school prices for one kid (some are more
           | expensive, of course, but it's _around_ the same price as
           | that sort of thing), so clearly there exist people willing
           | and able to pay that much for their kids ' education. Hell,
           | with a couple kids you can break that much per year at a
           | cheap-end-of-mid-priced day school.
        
         | lbriner wrote:
         | Why is it fiction? People who are rich enough to pay an entire
         | yacht crew are not going to worry about $50K a year for a tutor
         | to try and make their lazy waste-of-space child at least have
         | half a chance of creating their own success when they are
         | older.
        
         | gumby wrote:
         | I have seen this kind of thing directly. Kids in private school
         | who take their homework to the "tutoring session" where the
         | tutor basically does it for them. My own kid did tutoring for
         | beer money while in school.
         | 
         | I don't think the article is fundamentally fictional, though
         | clearly some of the retelling has been dressed up a bit.
        
         | fargus_dorsalby wrote:
         | I've had very similar experiences, I don't think this felt
         | exaggerated at all
        
       | onetimeusename wrote:
       | Every student's case mentioned made it seem like the goal of
       | tutoring is for the student to acquire elite status and prestige
       | by going to highly selective schools through the planning by
       | their neurotic parents. The material learned was less relevant.
       | 
       |  _I want to teach my students how to follow their passions, how
       | to strive for the life they want, rather than for hollow symbols
       | of success._
       | 
       | It seems like hollow symbols of success are what the parents and
       | institutions have agreed to create though. The number of schools
       | and slots for students has apparently not changed much but the
       | number of students across the globe who are competing for slots
       | in a few, elite western schools has gone up enormously. That
       | drives the value of the degree up through scarcity which seems to
       | be what people want for their children, is ways to be more elite
       | than their peers.
       | 
       | It's probably not surprising then that bribery happens. The
       | schools aren't really selling an education anymore and the
       | parents aren't really looking for one either.
        
         | sandworm101 wrote:
         | I attended an "elite" boys school back in the 1990s. It was a
         | doctor and lawyer factory. Everyone went to university and most
         | got advanced degrees. But I talked to a teacher there recently.
         | The students are now so wealthy that they are hard to motivate.
         | Doctors have to touch sick people. Lawyers have to go work in
         | an office. The students at my old school today don't dream of
         | success. They all pass, they all do well, but they aren't
         | performing like they used to. They know they will all go work
         | for daddy's real estate/banking firm. Why bother even trying?
         | 
         | My old school is now no longer the top in the country, slipping
         | to 4th last time I looked. The student body is smart, but
         | simply doesn't try as hard at anything anymore. I don't blame
         | them.
        
           | naveen99 wrote:
           | Doctors and lawyers aren't elite though. They are solidly
           | middle class.
        
           | mistrial9 wrote:
           | although genuine, this analysis is sort of 2D cutout
           | characterization, which feeds class stereotypes in another
           | way.. "When I was in school, I had to walk 2 miles every day,
           | uphill both ways! .. you people are less motivated" sort of
           | applies
           | 
           | Modern life has the number of human signals daily, increased
           | to stratospheric levels.. this is new, very new. It is not
           | clear how intelligent, social people are changing under this
           | communications environment.
           | 
           | other points omitted for the sake of brevity, but not the
           | whole story here..
        
             | sandworm101 wrote:
             | The fact that an experience is stereotypical doesn't meant
             | it is also inaccurate.
             | 
             | Students today do not have it easier. They are working less
             | hard at school because they need to work harder in other
             | areas. Grades don't matter. Everyone gets strait-As so as
             | long as you meat that standard there is little point in
             | trying harder. Even Going to a good school matters less and
             | less. The things kids have to do today are very different
             | than I faced. For me, grades were enough. For today's kids
             | grades are only the starting point. For instance, social
             | media presence is now very important. I never had to deal
             | with that when I was applying to universities.
        
               | hytdstd wrote:
               | > For today's kids grades are only the starting point.
               | For instance, social media presence is now very
               | important.
               | 
               | Care to elaborate on this?
        
               | sandworm101 wrote:
               | "I was speechless when a school official asked me about
               | all the clubbing and party pictures I posted on my
               | Facebook Account. In hindsight, I think I got rejected
               | from that school because they might have thought I will
               | do the same once I join school."
               | 
               | https://ischoolconnect.com/blog/effect-of-social-media-
               | on-co...
               | 
               | "According to a 2017 survey administered by the American
               | Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions
               | Officers, 11% of respondents said they "denied admission
               | based on social media content" and another 7% rescinded
               | offers for the same reason."
               | 
               | https://www.usnews.com/education/best-
               | colleges/articles/2019...
               | 
               | "According to the 364 colleges across the United States
               | we recently spoke with, 25 percent tell us that they have
               | visited an applicant's social media page, such as
               | Facebook, Instagram or Twitter to learn more about
               | them*."
               | 
               | https://www.kaptest.com/study/pre-college/college-
               | admission-...
        
             | lotsofpulp wrote:
             | Perhaps bank accounts, transactions, credit reports,
             | grades, should be public information, physical
             | measurements, medical history, etc should be public
             | information.
             | 
             | That way we, we do not have to play these signaling games
             | and can focus resources elsewhere.
        
         | ryandrake wrote:
         | Well, elite jobs typically go to people who can show these
         | hollow symbols of success, so as long as that's true, there
         | will be demand for "elite status" and "prestige". The elite
         | jobs are not hiring for what material was learned--they're
         | hiring based on your membership in the club and your pedigree.
         | Fix the demand for hollow symbols and maybe they become less
         | important. Good luck getting Goldman and McKinsey to stop
         | looking for Harvard on resumes though.
        
       | dataphyte wrote:
       | Bloom's 2-Sigma Problem: students getting one-on-one instruction
       | perform 2 standard deviations better than those learning from
       | ordinary instruction methods.
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_2_sigma_problem
        
         | dweekly wrote:
         | Yes! The thing that was missing in the original article was
         | answering the most important question in all of this: Does
         | Tutoring Work?
         | 
         | The implication left for a reader of the original article is
         | that tutoring is mostly about exam-prep or that it is under-
         | regulated, ineffectual, and a folly of the rich. But the truth
         | is that the over-regulation of conventional time-based
         | classroom learning is deeply flawed based on our understanding
         | of how people learn. Throwing thirty teenagers in a room at 8am
         | and having a tenured adult speak at them for 45 minutes on a
         | subject is not a recipe for success, nor is moving everyone
         | along at the same pace and calling the material complete after
         | a semester of education regardless of the depth of
         | understanding conveyed. We need intensive and personalized
         | schooling with mastery based learning - and to answer the
         | question of "where are we going to get that many teachers?" we
         | need people to teach as part of how they learn. For some odd
         | reason society only starts to embrace this in graduate school.
        
           | adverbly wrote:
           | > we need people to teach as part of how they learn.
           | 
           | I've got a principle I came up with called LTD: Learn, Teach,
           | Do.
           | 
           | The idea is to prioritize activities where I can be doing all
           | three at the same time. An example would be pair programming
           | with a junior on a new problem where I don't know how to
           | solve every part of the problem. "Learn on the job together
           | with a team, and share learnings as you go" is basically the
           | kind of work that I mean. I've found LTD activities are
           | awesome in so many ways. You build up the team around you,
           | grow as an individual, and get shit done all at the same
           | time.
           | 
           | I'm increasingly against activities which focus strongly on
           | only one of these(school being the main example).
        
             | em-bee wrote:
             | teaching is a very effective method of learning. in one
             | community that i am part of it is emphasized that most of
             | the benefits of teaching go to the teacher.
             | 
             | as for a school model, montessori groups children in age-
             | groups spanning 3 years, and older children there routinely
             | teach the younger ones.
        
               | bcrosby95 wrote:
               | Montessori schools are so weird. I'm convinced they're
               | mostly buzzwords to get rich parents to send their kids
               | there - at least around here. I know a couple of teachers
               | and all of them say that the Montessori schools around us
               | don't actually follow most of the philosophies of
               | Montessori.
               | 
               | In our area they seem to be for over-achievers. Want your
               | 4 year old to learn to read, write, and do math? Send
               | them to a Montessori. At least, that's the reason all the
               | parents I know send them there.
        
               | em-bee wrote:
               | the problem is that the name "montessori" is not
               | protected, and schools take advantage of that.
               | 
               | so you have to look closely if the teachers are actually
               | trained and certified by one of the training schools that
               | actually provide proper montessori training, and whether
               | the classrooms have the proper environment.
        
             | analog31 wrote:
             | This is actually a principle of training medics: Learn one,
             | do one, teach one.
        
           | narrator wrote:
           | The biggest problem with public instructions is bullying and
           | everything being targeted at minimum competence. Some 12 year
           | old prodigy graduated college and high school at the same
           | time because the pandemic and remote learning letting him
           | zoom ahead at a ridiculous pace.[1]
           | 
           | [1]https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/27/us/12-year-old-graduating-
           | hig...
        
             | deregulateMed wrote:
             | Bullying is bad, but I definitely knew my role wasn't to be
             | strong but rather academic. That line "nerds will be their
             | boss" was my incentive. (Although I don't personally want
             | to be a manager)
             | 
             | Sure it would be great to get rid of bullying, but I wonder
             | if it's inherent in humans.
             | 
             | I'd focus on things we can control like that minimum
             | competence problem you described.
        
           | p_j_w wrote:
           | >Throwing thirty teenagers in a room at 8am and having a
           | tenured adult speak at them for 45 minutes on a subject is
           | not a recipe for success
           | 
           | The problem here is that getting enough money to hire more
           | teachers per student is like pulling teeth. The problem that
           | we as a society are solving isn't "how can we achieve the
           | best overall educational outcome?" It's "how can we avoid a
           | disastrously uneducated population with a budget of $X?" I'm
           | not entirely sure we're doing a good job on that one either,
           | though.
        
             | bryondowd wrote:
             | I wonder if you could get some positive results by using
             | students as tutors. Imagine if a certain number of hours
             | per week, you paired up students in grade X with students
             | in grade X-1, to have the older students help the younger
             | ones to learn the material they leaned the previous year.
             | This would also help cement that knowledge in the older
             | group. Then you also have time where the students in grade
             | X are tutored by students in grade X+1, through the same
             | process. During this time, the teachers' jobs would be to
             | provide support.
        
             | dweekly wrote:
             | Right - but part of the difficulty and expense in hiring
             | teachers is that we've segmented it off as an expert
             | population with high barriers to entry. If everyone who
             | learned was also expected to teach, you scale the teaching
             | population with the learner population. You can actually
             | see the dynamics of this play out with flight training,
             | since you get your CFI at ~300hrs total flight experience
             | but nobody will hire you with less than ~1,000hrs, so you
             | have this massive pool of certified teachers with 300 -
             | 1,000hrs of experience available to teach as a consequence
             | of the design of the system.
        
       | inglor_cz wrote:
       | This seems to be another element of the "overproduction of
       | elites" theory by Peter Turchin that was discussed here a few
       | days ago.
       | 
       | In a world where the upper middle and upper class has grown to
       | all time high numbers, there is ever more adepts for prestigious
       | titles and prestigious jobs.
       | 
       | But the Oxfords and Harvards of the world do not multiply
       | themselves, and _they have no incentive to_. If the product that
       | they sell grows in value and price, why should they do anything
       | to reduce that value again?
       | 
       | We often criticize greed of capitalists, but top class
       | universities seem to be engaged in something very similar, while
       | mostly escaping the negative attention.
        
         | distrill wrote:
         | Prestigious universities get a lot of negative attention for
         | precisely this, at least in some circles. MBAs used to be a no
         | brainer, but the return on their investment has plummeted and
         | much of the value that is retained by the few that retain it is
         | tied up in the exclusivity of the brand.
         | 
         | I think (hope) we're also starting to see a reaction to this.
         | For example google is offering free education and at least
         | claiming to consider their graduates as equal to university
         | graduates.
        
       | knaik94 wrote:
       | There was definitely a lot lost when the pandemic happened. The
       | social cues, the personal interaction, the ability to get a
       | student to focus was greatly diminished. I always think about how
       | the number of people who want to work remotely is an interesting
       | contrast to how many people want to learn one on one in person.
       | 
       | I believe students have said okay to remote one to many
       | educators, with things like online university. But especially in
       | math and chemistry and physics, people want in person tutoring.
        
       | gport wrote:
       | The Economist starts writing daring pieces again. It seems that
       | the mainstream media in Britain starts to realize the mess they
       | have created in the last decade and throws around the rudder.
       | 
       | Hopefully the continent will follow.
        
         | pyuser583 wrote:
         | It's not an Economist article, it's an 1843 article. 1843 is an
         | Economist spinoff that focuses on "culture." It let's them take
         | risks while preserving their core product.
        
       | phantom_oracle wrote:
       | I picked this up from my time watching those British period
       | pieces, so this might be an assumption based on a fictional
       | telling of the past, but hasn't this concept of being a private
       | teacher/tutor been around for hundreds of years?
       | 
       | As these shows always showed the aristocracy, the aspiring
       | hero/heroin had their private teachers "guiding them to
       | greatness".
       | 
       | I also found it cynical that instead of aspiring to get a PhD to
       | earn a mediocre salary(in comparison) at FANNG, one could
       | navigate the field of being the private tutor to the already-rich
       | and probably earn more.
       | 
       |  _Random person: "What do you do for a living that has made you
       | so wealthy?"_
       | 
       |  _Elite Hong Kong tutor: "I tutor 12 year olds privately on
       | mathematics."_
        
         | tsss wrote:
         | Earn more than a FAANG PhD? In the article they wrote about
         | salaries of around 70PS/h and that's not good at all. The
         | average freelance programmer in Germany already makes 90EUR/h.
         | Sure there are some tutors who make 250/h but those are people
         | who are already in the upper echelons of society and have
         | access to top clients.
        
         | TchoBeer wrote:
         | I appreciate how this comment respects the fact that your
         | knowledge is spotty and possibly fictionalized. I'm always
         | scared to ask questions or make assumptions based on things I
         | half know from narratives and period pieces etc. Something I
         | can learn from.
        
         | romwell wrote:
         | >instead of aspiring to get a PhD to earn a mediocre salary(in
         | comparison) at FANNG
         | 
         | As a PhD at FAANG[1], I mourn that the default aspiration for
         | getting a PhD isn't staying in academia and advancing science.
         | 
         | And if you call FAANG salaries mediocre, I don't even know what
         | you'd call academia salaries :(
         | 
         | -------
         | 
         | [1] Formerly. Left for greener and less soul-draining pastures.
        
           | pyuser583 wrote:
           | Isn't there already overproduction of PhDs?
        
             | queuebert wrote:
             | Given that we still don't have a Mars base, haven't solved
             | the climate problem, and aren't living sustainably on the
             | planet, I would say no.
        
               | pyuser583 wrote:
               | Is that because of a shortage of PhDs? Isn't there a
               | significant surplus of aeronautical engineers?
               | 
               | I personally know several aeronautical engineers (with
               | doctorates) struggling to find work in their industry.
               | 
               | I know two folks with BAs in Environmental Science
               | working as Product Managers (unrelated to environment
               | sustainability).
               | 
               | Having goals we have yet to achieve doesn't show a lack
               | of specialists.
               | 
               | If anything the gap is in lower-level education.
               | 
               | Are our high schools emphasizing the urgency of the
               | climate crisis? Are they emphasizing the need to live
               | sustainably? Are they encouraging space exploration?
        
           | jsjohnst wrote:
           | > And if you call FAANG salaries mediocre (in comparison)
           | 
           | The wording of the sentence wasn't ideal, but GP was implying
           | you could potentially make a lot more as a private tutor than
           | you would at a FAANG. I'd argue that is a bit of rose colored
           | glasses as there are far more making 200k a year at a FAANG
           | than there are million dollar a year making private tutors.
        
           | TheTrotters wrote:
           | > I mourn that the default aspiration for getting a PhD isn't
           | staying in academia and advancing science.
           | 
           | It almost certainly is for the vast majority of grad
           | students. There are just way more newly-minted PhDs than
           | tenure-track jobs, especially if you add some (reasonable)
           | constraints like location, R1 university etc.
        
         | kbenson wrote:
         | The article quotes someone paying her PS70/hour for the
         | tutoring. Given that's also contract rates, and there's no
         | other perks from the company (such as bonus or healthcare, but
         | admittedly healthcare may be less of an issue in the UK),
         | that's not all that favorable to a FAANG employee's
         | compensation, as I understand it.
        
       | giarc wrote:
       | Paywalled - access here https://outline.com/PCcptc
        
       | j0e1 wrote:
       | Probably because of British influence, private tutors are a
       | commonplace in India. Being raised there, my parents though
       | encouraged me to just work hard myself and not rely on external
       | tutors. There were, however, a few years where I did get tutoring
       | for a few subjects that I needed help with- and my experience has
       | been great! Especially, for the 12th standard (high school)
       | Physics where I got >90% in the board exam. The tutor knew his
       | stuff and the pattern of the 'board exam' well.
       | 
       | On the other hand, I have had peers who rely on private tutoring
       | almost entirely and almost neglect what is being taught in
       | schools. And I have known parents who see schools as a necessary
       | evil.
       | 
       | There is also, the world of preparing for 'entrance exams'
       | (including IIT-JEE) which is where I have seen tutoring to the
       | extreme. Students who 'drop-out' (still enrolled on paper but not
       | attending in-person) of regular school starting as early as 8th
       | standard (grade) and move to cities where there are mini-
       | economies based on such preparatory institutes. They only go back
       | to their home-towns to write the final exams which is usually
       | subset of what they would learn at the institutes anyway. But the
       | sacrifice they make to be away from family for most parts of the
       | year and the hours they spend staring at a book is admirable.
       | 
       | Note: Please don't take this as a generalization of what happens
       | in India- just what I saw growing up in New Delhi.
        
       | golergka wrote:
       | One of the most important competitive advantages in modern world
       | is motivation to do things on your own. And all this tutoring
       | that kids are forced to be doing by adults is killing it.
        
         | rjsw wrote:
         | Not really sure that is a proven advantage. I have always been
         | self-motivated and had teachers who just left me to get on with
         | it and marked anything I handed in to them. You still have to
         | send out the right signals to people who don't know you.
        
         | lbriner wrote:
         | So true but this youngster doesn't sound like someone who needs
         | to win, he is already made. All he (or his parents) want is to
         | look like they are successful by saying, "Little Johnny got 15
         | GCSEs".
        
           | lumost wrote:
           | As a new parent I'm really torn on this topic. On the one
           | hand building resiliency and self-motivation need to happen
           | through self-directed activities. On the other hand, Sitting
           | on a couch watching Netflix probably isn't the most efficient
           | way to build these skills.
        
             | MathYouF wrote:
             | I found that heavy amounts of discussion of the "why" for
             | any activity, and then instilling confidence in that person
             | that they're capable of doing the thing that they've
             | already agreed to the "why" for, is a necessary
             | prerequisite for their self directed activities to be
             | productive ones.
             | 
             | The problem with most kids and adults I know is they either
             | lack a depth of reasoning for why they ought to be doing
             | something better, or lack the confidence that they'd be
             | able to accomplish it if they put their mind to it.
             | 
             | If you can't come up with a convincing "why" for them, then
             | you should reflect on how sustainable forcing them to do
             | that thing will be once they have independence.
             | 
             | There were a lot of things my mom expected of me (similar
             | to these kids with tutors). Some of them I agreed with,
             | some of them I didn't.
             | 
             | When I finally got my independence at 18, guess which ones
             | stuck, and which ones (where a lot of time and effort was
             | put into cultivating them) evaporated?
             | 
             | Talk to your children deeply about the why, and, as the
             | saying goes, they'll suffer almost any how.
        
           | Johnny555 wrote:
           | I think it goes beyond simple academic test results -- even
           | successful parents take pride in their children's
           | accomplishments, so they want to be able to say "Johnny grew
           | up to be a successful lawyer and he's going to take over the
           | family business". So they are doing what they can to set
           | their children up for success.
           | 
           | Unless they are uber-wealthy, then they'll just say "Johnny
           | is sailing our yacht around the Mediterranean (and when we
           | say "sailing", we mean there's an 8 person crew running the
           | boat)"
        
           | lordnacho wrote:
           | If only it were so.
           | 
           | What is being purchased is the right to feel that they worked
           | hard enough to deserve what they are certain to get anyway.
        
         | at_a_remove wrote:
         | I was a private tutor for a long time. My market segment often
         | leaned toward the "rather wealthy," although not anything like
         | this. However, the struggle to motivate is very real. Each
         | child or teen (or even young adult) comes with their own
         | package of bad coping skills, strengths and deficits,
         | motivations (or lack thereof), and so on. Each one has a
         | _history_.
         | 
         | In any case, to my actual point -- discovering those
         | motivations is one of the things for which I was paid. Often,
         | children do not understand education. It has been a flat "do
         | this" chore for them with some nebulous payout that will
         | supposedly happen twice their lifespan away, when all around
         | them they see images of people who did not go the conventional
         | route to success.
        
         | Jochim wrote:
         | The most important competitive advantage is having the money to
         | buy someone who knows how to do things for you. The second most
         | is knowing people who have already bought someone good at the
         | job.
         | 
         | It's why the rich don't manage their own money, make their own
         | food, clean their own house, or care for/teach their own
         | children. Instead they pay other people to do it for them.
        
         | pjc50 wrote:
         | > important competitive advantages in modern world is
         | motivation to do things on your own
         | 
         | .. but if you don't have that?
         | 
         | Besides, tutoring can be a bootstrap to that, especially in
         | young people. I've found myself that exercise is so much more
         | likely to happen if it's _not_ on my own, such as a regular
         | personal trainer appointment. The more it becomes a habit, the
         | more I feel like doing some more on my own as well.
        
       | em-bee wrote:
       | related, in china it was just announced that private tutoring
       | will be made illegal severely restricted.
       | 
       | https://www.reuters.com/world/china/exclusive-china-unveil-t...
        
         | babelfish wrote:
         | The article linked is much more nuanced than just 'private
         | tutoring will be made illegal'
        
           | baybal2 wrote:
           | I don't normally believe promises of "nuanced approach"
           | coming from a communist party, well, any promises.
        
             | chmod775 wrote:
             | The least nuanced thing here may be your worldview.
        
               | dang wrote:
               | Please don't cross into personal attack, no matter how
               | bad another comment is or you feel it is. It only makes
               | things worse.
               | 
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
               | chmod775 wrote:
               | Right. I should've thought about that comment for a
               | moment longer.
        
               | dang wrote:
               | Appreciated!
        
           | em-bee wrote:
           | you are right, i was quoting the headline of another source
           | that was based on the reuters article.
        
         | [deleted]
        
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