Tutoring Location

Most parents don't give this much thought, but where do you want tutoring to happen?

At Home

This is where most students are most comfortable. They know the place, all their stuff is there, they know who's there and they generally feel "safe." This is often more convenient for parents of a busy family, as they often need to drive or pickup another kid from something else somewhere else. Once they get to know their tutor, many parents feel safe stepping out to run some errands with the tutor in their home. Having tutoring occur in your home has the added advantage that it can start earlier in the day (as soon as the student is home from school), or finish much closer to their bedtime, since there isn't a drive home afterwards. Over 95% of my tutoring occurs in the student's home.

Public Library

This is the option preferred by most tutor (I don't), since it allows them to cram 1 or 2 more students in their evening, since they don't need to drive all over town because the students do. The reason I dislike public libraries is that they are quite often a zoo. Gone are the days where you got shushed by the librarian and you felt bad about having to cough. More often than not, there's little kids running around screaming. In addition, once or twice we weren't able to find a table. I find it an environment that is not the most conducive to tutoring and there is no privacy should the student feel the need to talk about "stuff," but I will meet students here if they prefer. I average one "library student" every other semester or so.

Coffee shops

This type of location seems to be gaining in popularity. I didn't think high school kids got hooked on coffee shops this young. My concerns about coffee shops are the same as for public libraries, in addition to having staff eyeball us for not ordering enough foodstuff while we use the premises.

Universities and Colleges

Calgary boasts 3 publicly accessible post-secondary campuses: the University of Calgary, SAIT and Mount-Royal University. These are great locations for tutoring, since they have lots of suitable locations, from their libraries to their studying areas to their unlocked classrooms. High school students often enjoy these locations since they get to "play university." I do enjoy these locations too, especially when they leave chalk behind in their unlocked classrooms. Then I get to "play teacher." SAIT and the University of Calgary are served by the C-Train, while the University of Calgary and Mount-Royal University have good bus service. All 3 have free on-street parking nearby, if you know where to look.

Online classes

For most people, this is the newest thing, but I have been conducting online classes as far back as 2009. In my case, it was always because a student was out of town, either because of a family trip in the middle of the semester, or it is a former high school student of mine whom is now attending university in Ontario and they need help, or it's one of my nieces in Africa. Most recently, people have been flocking to online learning out of forced necessity, and I've perfected my "system" to deliver as much of an in-person experience as I can. While video classes work well, some students do need an in-person presence.