Having worked at Sylvan I know a lot about it and the one thing I feel I have to do is warn all the parents out there, DON'T SEND YOUR KIDS TO SYLVAN!!!
I worked at Sylvan as a math tutor, I was fresh out of college and needed a job just to make some extra spending money, and plus, I thought this would be a good way to keep myself around mathematics, and it would be really awesome to get to actually teach students. How wrong I was, when I was first hired I was told I would be teaching students "just like I would in a classroom, " I would present the material to them and they would ask me questions, when I first entered I was also under the impression that I would work like a tutor, giving students individual attention, these things were false.
For one Sylvan tells parents that their kids will receive individual attention this is a lie, Education Inc. Expects that there will be an average of 2.8 students per each teacher, from expierence I can tell you that it is almost impossible to help a struggling student without one on one attention, and having two extra students which also need help at the table, makes this impossible.
Second, Sylvan lied about how I would be "teaching" the material to the students, what it boils down to is giving students worksheets and tests, with very little instruction in between. As a matter of fact I was discouraged to teach the way I felt had been effective in the past when I worked as a private tutor, instead I was forced to use Sylvan's completely ineffective methods. Also Sylvan's method of "algebra cubes" is a joke and a parlor trick used to trick unsuspecting parents with big wallets.in my nine years of studying mathematics seriously I've never heard of such things and doubt how effective they can be.
The first time I learned just how much money parents were spending at Sylvan I was in shock, when I worked as a private tutor I charged much less and saw more results.
I'm leaving out many more details I could tell, but I hope whoever reads this gets the point. Please parents don't send your kids to sylvan, find a private tutor or just spend some time on your own helping your kids, do not go to this jip joint!
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