I'm house-sitting for a friend this week, so blogging is going to be spotty at best. My apologies in advance.
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Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Monday, June 25, 2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
taking this coming week off
I'm sick with something that might be bronchitis, and I've got a big proofreading project to deal with, so I do believe I'm going to take the week off. I've written quite a bit since I began this blog last year, so there's plenty of material here for the curious reader. Feel free to rummage, and for what it's worth, keep in mind that I might put up a post or two this week.
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Monday, February 6, 2012
a post is forthcoming, but not right now
I normally slap up a post about test prep on Mondays, but I'm finishing up a massive proofreading project right now, so the post will have to wait. Apologies!
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Monday, December 26, 2011
lazy blogging
I may be blogging very irregularly this week, given that we're between Christmas and New Year's. Just thought I'd let you know. Enjoy the holidays!
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Sunday, November 6, 2011
the need for organization
This will be my 25th post on Time, Effort, and Focus. I've begun writing about various topics in a somewhat haphazard way, and it occurs to me that the time has come to impose a bit of organization on the whole affair. This will make it easier for a newbie to navigate the blog and find whatever topic he or she wants, and will also give the frequent visitor a greater sense of rhythm and routine. The first change is that I'm going to begin taking advantage of Blogger's labels-- a feature that arrived only belatedly on Blogger, but which has been standard on most other blogging platforms, such as WordPress. The second change is that I'll be blogging about certain subjects on certain days, following the subject matter on my tabs. From now on, then:
Mondays: Test Prep-related topics
Tuesdays: Math-related topics
Wednesdays: English-related topics
Thursdays: Foreign Language-related topics
Fridays: Religion-related topics
Weekends will either be a time of rest for me, or will feature a random assortment of omnibus topics-- anything goes.
You may start to notice that the posts I've already written will have acquired some labels retroactively. Use these labels to navigate, and fare thee well!
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Mondays: Test Prep-related topics
Tuesdays: Math-related topics
Wednesdays: English-related topics
Thursdays: Foreign Language-related topics
Fridays: Religion-related topics
Weekends will either be a time of rest for me, or will feature a random assortment of omnibus topics-- anything goes.
You may start to notice that the posts I've already written will have acquired some labels retroactively. Use these labels to navigate, and fare thee well!
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Thursday, October 27, 2011
my dirty secret
Well, if I write about it here, my "dirty secret" can't be much of a secret, can it?
All the same, my dirty secret is this: I teach for a tutoring center that does a lot of test and essay prep work for students of all ages, especially for high schoolers looking to do well on the SAT and to write kick-ass college application essays.
But I never used any such services when I was in high school.
I applied to three schools based on my ambition at the time (to become a French teacher): Georgetown, the University of Virginia, and Middlebury College, Vermont. UVA was my "fallback" school; GU and MC were my real targets.* I wrote my essays and may have passed them around to my parents to look over, but that was the extent of my efforts to seek outside help. On the strength of my academic record, my standardized test scores, and my essays, I was accepted to all three schools. To me, getting in was a breeze: it was hard to imagine not being accepted. Was I overprivileged? Have I been gifted with a 200 IQ? Nope. I consider myself to be of pretty average intelligence, and I came from a very middle-class background. Perhaps I would have felt more stress had I applied to some Ivy League schools, but as things were, I was confident that I would get into every school I had applied to.
My point-- the reason why I call all this a dirty secret-- is that I often feel that many of the students who come to me for advice don't really need my help. I've heard from my supervisor that times have changed, though: she contends that competition for schools has become more intense over the past two decades: students need all the help they can get. I squirm when I hear this; it seems like such an obvious play at justifying our center's existence.
As an inveterate teacher, I can't argue with the notion of being there to help students who need help. Helping is what a tutor does. The point of this post isn't that students should forgo all tutoring and fend for themselves: it's that part of a student's maturation process involves embracing independence, and teachers-- like parents-- ultimately have to be ready and able to let students go their own way and do their own thing. So, yeah: I think that most of my seniors are already able to function fantastically without me. They have bright futures ahead of them.
And that's my dirty secret: I think most of these kids don't really need my help. It might lose me some business to write about this, but it's also the truth.
*Georgetown comes with a reputation that dates back to its founding in 1789. Middlebury is well-known for its magnificent "language houses," in which students must speak in the target language on a 24/7 basis. Language training at Middlebury is some of the best training in the world. I sometimes regret not having gone there. UVA is, of course, a solid school all around, and many of its faculty members are both nationally and internationally reputed. In the end, though, I chose Georgetown and am glad I did. The Ignatian ideal of radical inquiry was a tonic to me; many of my own basic views about the world shifted significantly as a result of my time at GU.
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All the same, my dirty secret is this: I teach for a tutoring center that does a lot of test and essay prep work for students of all ages, especially for high schoolers looking to do well on the SAT and to write kick-ass college application essays.
But I never used any such services when I was in high school.
I applied to three schools based on my ambition at the time (to become a French teacher): Georgetown, the University of Virginia, and Middlebury College, Vermont. UVA was my "fallback" school; GU and MC were my real targets.* I wrote my essays and may have passed them around to my parents to look over, but that was the extent of my efforts to seek outside help. On the strength of my academic record, my standardized test scores, and my essays, I was accepted to all three schools. To me, getting in was a breeze: it was hard to imagine not being accepted. Was I overprivileged? Have I been gifted with a 200 IQ? Nope. I consider myself to be of pretty average intelligence, and I came from a very middle-class background. Perhaps I would have felt more stress had I applied to some Ivy League schools, but as things were, I was confident that I would get into every school I had applied to.
My point-- the reason why I call all this a dirty secret-- is that I often feel that many of the students who come to me for advice don't really need my help. I've heard from my supervisor that times have changed, though: she contends that competition for schools has become more intense over the past two decades: students need all the help they can get. I squirm when I hear this; it seems like such an obvious play at justifying our center's existence.
As an inveterate teacher, I can't argue with the notion of being there to help students who need help. Helping is what a tutor does. The point of this post isn't that students should forgo all tutoring and fend for themselves: it's that part of a student's maturation process involves embracing independence, and teachers-- like parents-- ultimately have to be ready and able to let students go their own way and do their own thing. So, yeah: I think that most of my seniors are already able to function fantastically without me. They have bright futures ahead of them.
And that's my dirty secret: I think most of these kids don't really need my help. It might lose me some business to write about this, but it's also the truth.
*Georgetown comes with a reputation that dates back to its founding in 1789. Middlebury is well-known for its magnificent "language houses," in which students must speak in the target language on a 24/7 basis. Language training at Middlebury is some of the best training in the world. I sometimes regret not having gone there. UVA is, of course, a solid school all around, and many of its faculty members are both nationally and internationally reputed. In the end, though, I chose Georgetown and am glad I did. The Ignatian ideal of radical inquiry was a tonic to me; many of my own basic views about the world shifted significantly as a result of my time at GU.
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Friday, October 7, 2011
"A Web Whiteboard"
For those of us who tutor via Skype, it's vitally important that we have access to an online whiteboard. A physical whiteboard isn't nearly as convenient: it would have to sit behind me in the webcam view, and I'd have to shift out of my chair every time I wanted to use it. The student might also want to see the notes on the board, and would have to ask me to move. While I definitely need the exercise, I don't think all that standing and sitting and standing is productive in a class context.
Just today, on my Twitter feed, I saw someone link to a new, super-stripped-down type of online whiteboard, called very simply "A Web Whiteboard." No installation necessary-- not that this is unique to A Web Whiteboard, but it does make the app more convenient. I tried the app out for a few minutes... and came away a bit disappointed. While AWW has the advantage of being cross-platform (you can use it just as easily on your smart phone or iPad as you can on your computer), it's missing features that are vital to tutoring, such as the ability to write text or to create clean geometric shapes when visualizing math problems. As far as I can tell, and I may be wrong about this, the whiteboard is geared entirely toward freehand work.
A much better whiteboard for tutors is, in my opinion, Dabbleboard. Dabbleboard is almost as easy to use as AWW is, but it comes with far more features. You can write text on Dabbleboard, for example, and can adjust the size of the text. The text palette includes simple mathematical symbols (pi, square root, some exponents, etc.). You can draw freehand or use a shape-recognizing "orthogonal" tool to create geometric shapes.* The board's animation quality is also much better than AWW's. Dabbleboard includes a video chat function (is this a recent addition?), which makes Skyping a bit redundant, but since I'd normally have to "meet" my students via Skype before referring to the whiteboard during a session, it's better for me simply to remain with Skype.
All in all, if you're an online tutor, I can't recommend AWW in its current state. Once AWW adds more features, I may change my tune. But for now, of the various online whiteboards I've tried, Dabbleboard is the best fit for me.
*Unfortunately, Dabbleboard interprets your attempts to draw trapezoids as attempts to draw rectangles. To make a trapezoid, you have to draw each line segment separately-- a difference of only a few seconds, so it's no more than a minor annoyance.
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Just today, on my Twitter feed, I saw someone link to a new, super-stripped-down type of online whiteboard, called very simply "A Web Whiteboard." No installation necessary-- not that this is unique to A Web Whiteboard, but it does make the app more convenient. I tried the app out for a few minutes... and came away a bit disappointed. While AWW has the advantage of being cross-platform (you can use it just as easily on your smart phone or iPad as you can on your computer), it's missing features that are vital to tutoring, such as the ability to write text or to create clean geometric shapes when visualizing math problems. As far as I can tell, and I may be wrong about this, the whiteboard is geared entirely toward freehand work.
A much better whiteboard for tutors is, in my opinion, Dabbleboard. Dabbleboard is almost as easy to use as AWW is, but it comes with far more features. You can write text on Dabbleboard, for example, and can adjust the size of the text. The text palette includes simple mathematical symbols (pi, square root, some exponents, etc.). You can draw freehand or use a shape-recognizing "orthogonal" tool to create geometric shapes.* The board's animation quality is also much better than AWW's. Dabbleboard includes a video chat function (is this a recent addition?), which makes Skyping a bit redundant, but since I'd normally have to "meet" my students via Skype before referring to the whiteboard during a session, it's better for me simply to remain with Skype.
All in all, if you're an online tutor, I can't recommend AWW in its current state. Once AWW adds more features, I may change my tune. But for now, of the various online whiteboards I've tried, Dabbleboard is the best fit for me.
*Unfortunately, Dabbleboard interprets your attempts to draw trapezoids as attempts to draw rectangles. To make a trapezoid, you have to draw each line segment separately-- a difference of only a few seconds, so it's no more than a minor annoyance.
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Thursday, October 6, 2011
testing Google Docs
I've just written up and uploaded a registration form that has been converted to Google Doc format. Here is the link. You can use the form to register for my classes after we've had an email discussion about your academic needs and your preferred schedule.
Let's see whether this works...
UPDATE: The form seems to work. People simply need to download it as a Word document, fill it out, then send the completed form to me as a file attachment. The form doesn't require anyone to divulge credit card information; payment is through PayPal (using my email address, kevin.timeeffortfocus@gmail.com, as their payee reference), which is encrypted. I use PayPal all the time for eBay; it hasn't failed me yet.
NB: Please remember to double the "e"s in "timeeffortfocus." It's very easy to write "timeffortfocus" by mistake.
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Let's see whether this works...
UPDATE: The form seems to work. People simply need to download it as a Word document, fill it out, then send the completed form to me as a file attachment. The form doesn't require anyone to divulge credit card information; payment is through PayPal (using my email address, kevin.timeeffortfocus@gmail.com, as their payee reference), which is encrypted. I use PayPal all the time for eBay; it hasn't failed me yet.
NB: Please remember to double the "e"s in "timeeffortfocus." It's very easy to write "timeffortfocus" by mistake.
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Saturday, October 1, 2011
makes you think
My most recent Craigslist ad-- I've created two thus far-- was flagged for deletion for some reason. I read over the Craigslist Terms of Service, and couldn't see what I'd done wrong. No porn, nothing defamatory, no improper use of trademarked or copyrighted material... what exactly was the problem? The ad might be guilty of excessive corniness, but since when has that been a TOS matter?
I suspect that some insecure competitor had my ad flagged as a way of knocking off the competition. It's a low and dirty tactic, if so.
My response: repost.
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I suspect that some insecure competitor had my ad flagged as a way of knocking off the competition. It's a low and dirty tactic, if so.
My response: repost.
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Friday, September 30, 2011
...and I'm hitting Craigslist again
My newest Craigslist ad, specifically for GRE-takers.
I admit I'm ambivalent about using Craigslist. While I've found some good people through the site-- I once sold a set of old D&D books to a Dungeons and Dragons fan, for example-- I've also encountered some freaks, like the person who asked me to help him cheat on a math exam. Craigslist is definitely a mixed bag; use it at your own risk. All the same, I'm hopeful that, through these ads, I'll meet high-caliber students who are motivated to do well on the GRE.
(By the way, for those who don't know: ETS is still compiling data on test-taker performance, so scores aren't being released-- for anybody-- until November.)
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I admit I'm ambivalent about using Craigslist. While I've found some good people through the site-- I once sold a set of old D&D books to a Dungeons and Dragons fan, for example-- I've also encountered some freaks, like the person who asked me to help him cheat on a math exam. Craigslist is definitely a mixed bag; use it at your own risk. All the same, I'm hopeful that, through these ads, I'll meet high-caliber students who are motivated to do well on the GRE.
(By the way, for those who don't know: ETS is still compiling data on test-taker performance, so scores aren't being released-- for anybody-- until November.)
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Thursday, September 29, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Three Ingredients for Success
The phrase "time and effort"-- as in "Thank you for your time and effort!"-- is a fairly common one. Most of us have used it at one point or another, but I've often felt that the expression lacked something, and after a bit of thought I realized: worthy accomplishments involve more than just time and effort: they also involve focus.
Think about it: if you're learning to play a musical instrument, you need to put in the time; there's no way around this. You also can't simply sit in your practice chair for hours, doing nothing, and assume that time spent equals effort made. No: you actually need to practice. So effort counts, too. But if your effort lacks direction, if you don't have any specific goals and guidelines by which to operate, then it doesn't matter how much time and effort you put into the task-- you'll never succeed at it. Focus is the missing ingredient, here: focus refers to one's ability to strip away all the extraneous thoughts and actions and simply concentrate on doing what needs to be done. Focus is what links a person to his or her goal: it's clarity of purpose. Time and effort are linked to willpower, but willpower is never enough. You have to know what you're doing and where you're going. You have to possess direction and vision.
Time, effort, and focus. I'm not saying that these three ingredients are the only ingredients to success; there may well be others, e.g., talent, for instance. But these three ingredients seem so basic to me that it would be silly not to mention them.
So that's why the blog has the title it does. The blog's URL, "seongdo," comes from the Korean pronunciation of the characters for "attain/succeed" (Chinese 成, Korean 성, seong-- sounds a bit like the English "sung") and "Tao/the Way" (Chinese 道, Korean 도, do-- sounds a bit like the English "doe"). In China, the term originally referred to the Taoist notion of attaining and becoming one with the true Way; when Buddhism entered China, however, the term also took on the Buddhist meaning of enlightenment.
This blog is all about teaching people, but I don't want you to think I claim any enlightenment for myself. I tend to look at enlightenment the way most people view self-improvement: it's an ongoing process. Not only that, but it's cooperative: in any teacher-student relationship, the teacher is often learning as much as the student is.
In subsequent blog posts, I'll be talking more specifically about what I'm doing-- what subjects I'm hoping to teach, who my market is, and why I'm teaching. Stay tuned!
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Think about it: if you're learning to play a musical instrument, you need to put in the time; there's no way around this. You also can't simply sit in your practice chair for hours, doing nothing, and assume that time spent equals effort made. No: you actually need to practice. So effort counts, too. But if your effort lacks direction, if you don't have any specific goals and guidelines by which to operate, then it doesn't matter how much time and effort you put into the task-- you'll never succeed at it. Focus is the missing ingredient, here: focus refers to one's ability to strip away all the extraneous thoughts and actions and simply concentrate on doing what needs to be done. Focus is what links a person to his or her goal: it's clarity of purpose. Time and effort are linked to willpower, but willpower is never enough. You have to know what you're doing and where you're going. You have to possess direction and vision.
Time, effort, and focus. I'm not saying that these three ingredients are the only ingredients to success; there may well be others, e.g., talent, for instance. But these three ingredients seem so basic to me that it would be silly not to mention them.
So that's why the blog has the title it does. The blog's URL, "seongdo," comes from the Korean pronunciation of the characters for "attain/succeed" (Chinese 成, Korean 성, seong-- sounds a bit like the English "sung") and "Tao/the Way" (Chinese 道, Korean 도, do-- sounds a bit like the English "doe"). In China, the term originally referred to the Taoist notion of attaining and becoming one with the true Way; when Buddhism entered China, however, the term also took on the Buddhist meaning of enlightenment.
This blog is all about teaching people, but I don't want you to think I claim any enlightenment for myself. I tend to look at enlightenment the way most people view self-improvement: it's an ongoing process. Not only that, but it's cooperative: in any teacher-student relationship, the teacher is often learning as much as the student is.
In subsequent blog posts, I'll be talking more specifically about what I'm doing-- what subjects I'm hoping to teach, who my market is, and why I'm teaching. Stay tuned!
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