I've been MSing part time for a couple of years. I never wanted to go full time; I find it takes a lot of work for very little payoff, if you count all the things you do aside from the actual shop. You have to sign up with so many companies, jump on the jobs before someone beats you to it, and often wait months between doing shops you actually like to do. Then there's the waiting for your reimbursement and pay; basically I give an interest-free loan, and more than once I've been stiffed altogether.

Well, finances became such that I needed something else, still not full time. I looked into tutoring. I signed with 2 companies in December, and it started out slow during the holidays. It's mid-Feb now and I have so many students I had to temporarily stop getting opportunities.

The pay is not what I'd call lucrative but it beats MSing. One lets me set my own rate, which I started high, but I got a couple of students. The other company pays TWICE A WEEK. I work online or in-person. (The elite tutors charge $250+ per hour!)

And it is so much more satisfying. I got feedback from a mom of a hs junior that her daughter, who failed math, "gets it all now" and thinks math is fun. So much better than picking apart whether a bathroom was fully stocked.

If anybody is interested, I will be glad to answer questions. Feel free to PM me, too. There are some signup bonuses you may qualify for.

What a wonderful alternative.

Congratulations!

Hi. could you PM me? My son might be interested.

Hey, that's great!

Congratulations! Sounds like a very satisfying way to earn some money and have a positive impact on lives. We hired a math tutor for my older son a few years ago, and she was charging $45/hour back then!

Now I'm encouraging him to tutor students in Spanish (he's a language whiz), but I think he's too shy. If you have any suggestions for him as to how to get started, would you please PM me? The only way we know of to get started is for him to "put out his shingle" on his own. TIA!

Good choice. Back when I was fresh on that type of work, I’d often advertise my services all over campus and charged $30-50 an hour depending on the subject. It was great money, as I charged cash only and stash the earnings in my safe, tax free.

Ha Ha..I would need a tutor to teach me the way they teach math now days. I am a former public school teacher. I'm retired now and sub on occasion, but math was not my subject. I subbed once in a 6th grade classroom and had to do math. I was totally lost with the way they do it now..guestimating??? what's up with that. I still like the old school way.

Anyway, that's great that you are enjoying it and making some good cash. Congrats.It's good to have multiple sources of income. You might consider doing some shops that you enjoy and pay well along with what you're doing now.

MsJudi, I had only heard horrible things about Common Core. I work with a set of (adorable) twins in the fourth grade, and it's common core. I see a lot of problems, and in fact our first lesson was about estimating, but in truth it helps later when we're reality-checking our work. "This fraction is close to 1, minus a fraction close to 1/2, so our answer should be close to 1/2." I'm not as against it now as I was.

catgrannyof5 and BirdyC (and anyone else interested), I would rather if you PM me with your questions, as there is a lot I could tell you. I do have links to use if you want me to refer you or your friends/relatives.

To each his own. Tutoring seems like a ridiculously less desirable gig to me!

Great for you! It's always great news when someone finds alternatives that are a better fit. I do MS mostly for reimbursed experiences...but I won't give up my side gig - it pays reasonably well - moving money around and picking up bonuses for doing that...not much work involved. MSing is much trickier and less predictable, but there are a few gems to be mined from it here and there.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2018 02:17AM by BarefootBliss.

Congrats. It is not all about money. Having something you enjoy is worth a lot. (Which is more than a few and way more than a couple.)

Tutoring: Congrats! I've done a bit of this as it is very much in my line of work... However, I spent enough time with teenagers every day as it is and need a breather.....

Pay: I am very skeptical about $250/hr. Very. The going rate for an experienced tutor with lots of education (masters) tends to be $60-$80 in this area - which has a high cost of living. I know of a couple of folks who are able to charge a little over $120/hr. for one student. Some folks are able to do small groups, charging, say four kids $30/hr each.

Common Core: There is a major misconception about the Common Core: It is NOT a curriculum. It is a set of standards that schools are expected to get their students to meet. A curriculum can be "Common Core Aligned," which essentially means that it addresses required standards at each grade level. Two school districts can have very different math curricula, but also be "Common Core Aligned."

I never understood the issues with common core. Even before that become a thing, that concept was how I was taught to quickly count change during my glory days at the BK Lounge... I actually found it to be quite useful and quicker to count change without any assistance of the register screen.

Most folks who argue against (or for) the Common Core, are doing so based on rhetoric than knowledge or understanding. One of the challenges is that the standards it sets are higher than those by many states and local districts. Moreover, the implementation does not necessarily allow flexibility for students who move frequently (which is common in military towns or areas with strong immigrant populations, or students who arrive in a district below grade level, etc.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2018 03:34AM by MFJohnston.

I always heard such awful things about Common Core and finally decided to do a bit of research. It now is beyond me why anyone has such a huge problem with it and if memory serves, a lot of highly respected educators were involved in creating the program. How it became such a political hot button is beyond me.

After being on the receiving end of several education "experiments," I realize they don't always work, but still give credit to educators trying to improve learning. Just my two cents, which is worth about a penny, instilling a desire to learn can be as important as the actual teaching. I was incredibly lucky to actually have several teachers who encouraged me and convinced me learning is not only lifelong, it can actually be fun

@LisaSTL wrote:

I always heard such awful things about Common Core and finally decided to do a bit of research. It now is beyond me why anyone has such a huge problem with it

Not to get political and I am not stating for or against, just simply giving an explanation. People who are conservative tend to want more decentralized government. Common Core attempts to centralize standards. Couple that with not understanding what is being taught for many of those people (and even more so as you drift further right) means "the government is making our local school do something I don't understand so I don't like it."

@bgriffin wrote:

To each his own. Tutoring seems like a ridiculously less desirable gig to me!

I should have bet money that he would post this reply.

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by moving money around. Is that MSing or something else you do?

I will probably keep one or two of my favorite shops, if I can get them. Why not, I'd go there anyway, right?

@BarefootBliss wrote:

Great for you! It's always great news when someone finds alternatives that are a better fit. I do MS mostly for reimbursed experiences...but I won't give up my side gig - it pays reasonably well - moving money around and picking up bonuses for doing that...not much work involved. MSing is much trickier and less predictable, but there are a few gems to be mined from it here and there.

I understand there are those concerned with local control, both for political and religious reasons. OTOH, I look at the country as a whole. Competing against each other doesn't make a lot of sense in a global economy when we should be working on a national scale. The children suffer by not always having the same quality education as those in other states or even other parts of their own state. Eventually that translates into everyone paying the price. I believe in that old adage about the children being the future.

@bgriffin wrote:

Not to get political and I am not stating for or against, just simply giving an explanation. People who are conservative tend to want more decentralized government. Common Core attempts to centralize standards. Couple that with not understanding what is being taught for many of those people (and even more so as you drift further right) means "the government is making our local school do something I don't understand so I don't like it."

Totally agree, people too readily conflate Common Core with the shift in teaching math or other general subjects. The standards are the goal but how each district, at least in my state, approaches teaching math...well, any school district says that it is based on current research. But in my suburb, (very competitive but not among the most elite of the elite competitive suburbs, i.e., a high median income, but not filled with the old money and Fortune 500 types with a fleet of private planes), my community is split between two consolidated school districts, i.e., K-12 as one educational entity, so you only graduate from high school, nothing else as you transition between three school levels. The curriculums are different. From my oldest to my youngest, I have seen the transition and evolution in thought, some things carry over, regardless of the spiraling curriculum, borrowing from Chicago Math or Singapore Math. This all pre-dated Common Core. From kindergarten on, the simple idea of using math mountains to understand the parts that make a number is one very simple model to demonstrate conceptually the relationship between subtraction and addition. All of the modeling that kids do is more than just a formulaic 'show your work' exercise. These kids from the earliest age are developing the notion of proofs. I first was exposed to that in Honors Math in high school when we had to do proofs for basic logic and math theorems before we ever did math. Functionally, that is what these kids are doing. Especially when they engage in Stretch Your Thinking reflection questions. When the kids do math talk, they are learning from each other and getting a different perspective on someone else's thinking. There is an emphasis on mental math, which at times I find frustrating because all of the cognitive research suggests that the deeper learning takes place with the more ways that you ingrain the concept, like by writing something out, discussing it, etc. I have one child who is not a strong visual learner at all, but can think long and hard and deep about very abstract concepts. When I help with some of the math, I model out loud how I think of the problem, rewriting in symbols all of the facts stated in a word problem so I can begin to plot out the relationships among known and unknown pieces to solve the problem. I cannot imagine doing all of that mentally when just approaching understanding a concept, like ratios and basic linear functions.

@MFJohnston wrote:

Tutoring: Congrats! I've done a bit of this as it is very much in my line of work... However, I spent enough time with teenagers every day as it is and need a breather.....

I only have one teen, and one set of fourth grade twins, who are cute as pie and very easy to work with. All the rest are adults studying for the GRE (grad school admissions test).

@MFJohnston wrote:

Pay: I am very skeptical about $250/hr. Very. The going rate for an experienced tutor with lots of education (masters) tends to be $60-$80 in this area - which has a high cost of living. I know of a couple of folks who are able to charge a little over $120/hr. for one student. Some folks are able to do small groups, charging, say four kids $30/hr each.

I couldn't believe it either! Yet those tutors have ratings and reviews in the THOUSANDS (i.e., they've tutored thousands of people at those rates!). But it is somewhat misleading because they will offer discounts for booking a series, or paying in advance, or working online. But even with discounts, you're talking about well over $100/hour.

They all are "elite college" grads and their market is not folks like you and me, but the rich. If you can increase someone's score or their grades so that they have more opportunities ahead, it's worth it to many people. Hence, you can make a fortune tutoring children to pass private school entrance exams, or tutoring students to get the top 10% or 1% of SAT or GRE scores or 4.0 GPA that will have Harvard offering scholarships.

My GRE score was top 1%, but alas I did not go to an Ivy League college, so I probably won't get those kind of rates. Unless I go back to school ... hmmm...

I also applied for a job as a live instructor, and the process is grueling. I had to audition, memorize material, get background checked, and on and on. For that I'm an employee, but without any set schedule. It's really more like a contractor. I'm still in training.

@MFJohnston wrote:

Common Core: There is a major misconception about the Common Core: It is NOT a curriculum. It is a set of standards that schools are expected to get their students to meet. A curriculum can be "Common Core Aligned," which essentially means that it addresses required standards at each grade level. Two school districts can have very different math curricula, but also be "Common Core Aligned."

Hey, I'm not sure how they teach kids to count change in common core, or if they do at all. I can tell you that most of my millennials cannot (or more likely, will not) do basic subtraction (100 - 80) or multiplication (75 x 2) without a calculator. Yes, those are real examples from my students. The idea is that nowadays if you have a calculator or a computer, you don't need to do all that evil rote memorization. It's scary.

@Tarantado wrote:

I never understood the issues with common core. Even before that become a thing, that concept was how I was taught to quickly count change during my glory days at the BK Lounge... I actually found it to be quite useful and quicker to count change without any assistance of the register screen.

You just stated you didn't understand why someone would be against it. I was simply giving you their reasons. I never said they were valid or invalid.

@LisaSTL wrote:

I understand there are those concerned with local control, both for political and religious reasons. OTOH, I look at the country as a whole. Competing against each other doesn't make a lot of sense in a global economy when we should be working on a national scale. The children suffer by not always having the same quality education as those in other states or even other parts of their own state. Eventually that translates into everyone paying the price. I believe in that old adage about the children being the future.

@bgriffin wrote:

Not to get political and I am not stating for or against, just simply giving an explanation. People who are conservative tend to want more decentralized government. Common Core attempts to centralize standards. Couple that with not understanding what is being taught for many of those people (and even more so as you drift further right) means "the government is making our local school do something I don't understand so I don't like it."

I teach in Bill Gates' and Jeff Bezos' neighborhood. If they had kids in public schools, they would be in my school district.... Tutors in that area do not get paid that much.... I'm not saying that you are wrong, only that I am skeptical about anybody who claims to earn that much tutoring....

@MFJohnston wrote:

I teach in Bill Gates' and Jeff Bezos' neighborhood. If they had kids in public schools, they would be in my school district....

Wait. You mean they're not?!?!

I'm confused. Did I say you were stating they were valid or invalid? I guess my comment was somewhat rhetorical about not understanding why anyone would be against it in principle. I also feel sometimes the focus is more on the word control, local versus state versus federal, than on what might actually be best. I live in a county divided into around 90 municipalities who each wants a piece of the pie. Ninety little governments whose priority is control versus the most efficient, economical way to deliver services to their constituents. To me it is illogical yet it will not change because the people believe their input holds more weight this way. They ignore all evidence to the contrary.

It sounded like you were trying to argue with me.

Like if someone asked why oranges were some people's favorite fruit and I gave you their reasons even though I think bananas are better and you started telling me all about how bananas were better.......

Bill Gates kids went/go to "Lakeside," which is about two miles from my house. I don't even know if Bezos has kids.... The both live in the Medina neighborhood (which kind of operates like its own city) and where a house recently sold for a mere $26M.