Student: “Gotten most of the rules [of calculus derivatives] memorized.”
Me: “Sweet! 
That’s good to hear! Thanks for sharing!”
Student: ”You rock sir! A true role model indeed! 
”
December 23, 2009
Texting On a Cell Phone
December 18, 2009
He Passed!!
A student I worked with recently ended up passing his college math class. Congrats to him! We started working together a mere two and one-half weeks ago — when he had a low-50s average. Working hard and working diligently, we were able to pull that up to a low-70s. Which grade would have been a little higher if we could have met a few more times to prepare for another quiz and another test he had to take. His effort and success is all the more sterling and solid given that he is having to deal with a hard situation: a family member with cancer. Enough to rack anybody’s mind, heart, and soul. Keep them in your thoughts. They deserve it.
December 16, 2009
Making a Difference
Me: “Where and how often did you hear about logic, deduction, and induction?”
Student I tutor: “Well, never. Logic was never brought up in any fashion in high school. Never. I had a heart attack when my [college] English teacher said it this year. It was a first ever. No one has ever taught me proper thought process…but thanks to you I’m snapping out of it.”
December 14, 2009
Finals Week Is Busy
Yesterday. Geez.
I tutored math and more for ten hours; I was gone from home for fourteen: leaving home at 8:30 AM, I didn’t get back until 11 PM.
As it was the day before finals week, Sunday took me from helping someone prepare an essay for English (and a little for history) — focused “brainstorming,” picking a topic to write about, study of detail, induction of general ideas, integration and spiral thinking, writing an outline, developing verbally some ideas for specific sentences; the essay was about a conflict in Of Mice and Men — to tutoring geometry to tutoring algebra to AP calculus to college algebra.
What a joy it is to not give, to not “spoon-feed,” ideas to students, but to teach them to reason and use logic and think independently.
Sweet. Dang, that was fun…
November 30, 2009
Logic Makes It Easy
I tutored a fifth grader on 11-17-09. We did some work on numbers and the decimal system.
Me: “So do you understand this about the way decimals work?”
Student: “I do the way you explain it.”
Logic. Gotta love it. Theory and practice unite.
November 27, 2009
Giving Thanks…
…for a ninth-grade student who said “Students in my class don’t know how to reason.” It is good that he grasps such a thing, and is learning from my work with him what reasoning is.
…for a fifth-grade student who, under my guidance, is learning how to think and use reason. She is being trained in methods deeper than and beyond math — of which latter she is getting a solid, objective grasp.
…for a high school senior who, under my tutelage, increased her SAT score from a 1630 (before I worked with her; this was a real SAT, not one administered for record purposes) to a 1970. That’s 340 points. And we did not even cover all the material I wanted, in the number of sessions I thought appropriate — i.e., she could have done better.
November 17, 2009
Lately…
It’s been a busy two or three weeks marketing, helping an algebra student go from grades in the 50s (before I started working with the student!) to grades of 87s and 95s, helping a high school student learn essentials of math and grammar and reading for the SAT, helping a calculus student grasp limits in calculus in preparation for the May AP Exam, helping another student grasp the use of first and second derivatives to analyze functions and graphs…and helping lots more. These students learn more than ‘just math,’ i.e., just algorithms handed down from on high and forced on them like chains — they are learning to use reason and logic.
I love what I do for a living…
November 9, 2009
Finding Libraries At Which To Study: It’s Easy
Thank goodness for the Internet — and the mathematics, physics, and reasoning that made it possible, and that continue to refine and improve it. How easy it is to find places to go to study; besides Paneras and Starbucks and home, there are nice, quiet libraries all over the place. We can see all the branch libraries in Texas at the click of a mouse.
October 13, 2009
The Priced, and the Priceless
Dinner at a restaurant, a baseball game, a day at the rodeo, a video game — material things come and go; they have a price.
But with education and tutoring — knowledge is forever; it is priceless. What you can take with you from a good teacher or tutor you can use forever, as is captured in the proverb “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Good tutoring is worth the investment.
Compare the prices of other services:
Piano lessons can run $30 to $150 for an hour. The Parents Music Guide agrees with this. And on Answers.com someone makes the good point that (read carefully!) “In my opinion, paying $50 for 45 minutes of high standard tuition is much better than paying $25 for lessons that are next to useless.” This applies to tutoring as well.
Guitar lessons are a little cheaper, at $20 to $45 per hour. (Or more, I’d imagine!)
Horseback riding lessons are usually $25 to $60 per hour, or more.
Voice lessons can be $30 to $100 per hour, or more. Costhelper.com agrees.
Dance lessons cost $45 to $120 per hour, or more.
Personal trainers charge on average $60-$70 per hour.
In a recent article in the Houston Chronicle, “The ABCs on cutting tutoring costs: Studying the options can result in high marks for the money saved” (Mon 09/07/2009 Houston Chronicle, Section B, Page 6, 3 STAR R.O. Edition), Candice Choi (of Associated Press) writes:
THE arithmetic of hiring a tutor can keep you up at night. At $100 an hour, once a week, for the next several months or more, what are the costs?
Even as you scale back spending in the downturn, you’re probably not willing to compromise on your children’s education.
…
One way to cut costs is to team up with other families. If you’re using a tutoring company, the firm will generally do the grouping for you. At Kaplan Test Prep, for example, small-group tutoring of three kindergarten through eighth-grade students costs about $45 to $55 per session. That’s compared to about $60 to $75 for a one-on-one session.Copyright © 2009 The Houston Chronicle
The best deal for your money — the best deal, period — is MGTutoring.
July 21, 2009
A Testimonial
“You taught me where it all comes from and the importance of the fundamentals. You were always prompt, well-prepared, and thorough.” –Laurie P, student (college)
