Whenever you start up a small business, people ask you why. Why take the risk? Why now? Why not after you retire? Why would you want to work more on top of your main gig? And I always have an answer for them ...
Because I like students.
Because I care about helping students.
Because I want to give everyone the space and resources to share their experiences.
Because I want to work towards social justice by using my educational privilege to empower others through their writing.
... but as I continue in private tutoring, I catch myself pausing before I answer. Now, the question I dwell on is who (and whom). Who enrolls in private tutoring? Whom do I serve? Who can afford this service? Who can help me provide it to those most in need? Who is empowered by my work?
Is it me? Am I the only one benefiting here?
What if the answers are actually...
Because I like money?
Because I want to set my own schedule?
Because I'm frustrated by the structure of institutional education?
Because I want to act out some kind of white savior fantasy without ever analyzing my own privilege?
I sincerely hope not.
Certainly, in my primary role as a teacher and tutor in higher education, especially in my work at a community college, I empower students who absolutely need my support. These students come from all backgrounds: native-born citizens, immigrants, refugees, and visa holders. They speak only one language or many. They are young and old, quick and slow, fluent and learning, confident and hesitant, and all of them striving, striving to be better, to do better, to better themselves and their communities.
Students at my college are in front of me because they need something.
My private tutoring students want. They want to get better grades or get into better colleges. They want to have a good enough GPA to get into pharmacy school or grad school or law school. And they work hard, so they do deserve all of those things. With my help, they become better than they could have on their own. Along the way, I try to instill in them a sense of social responsibility -- an obligation to use the tools I teach them to go make the world better for someone else.
Is it enough to make that positive impact one degree removed? Is it enough to teach the privileged to see that privilege, name it, and use it to dismantle the very same system that keeps my bills paid? Or is this the worst kind of noblesse oblige?
I suspect that, despite my best efforts to the contrary, in my private practice, I've found myself helping, if not the wrong students (no such thing), the students who need me least. Worse still, I worry that I am actually widening the gap between the educationally privileged and the educationally disadvantaged.
I don't quite know what I'm going to do with these thoughts yet. Right now, I've got more questions than answers. I do know that, as a writer, I need to put them into words so that I can come back and look at them a few more times.
I'll end with these thoughts:
I know who I want to serve with this business, but I need to figure out how to connect with them.
I know what my time is worth, but I need to figure out how to provide that time to people who cannot afford it.
I know that working at colleges and universities can be part of the solution to the problems I want to face, but I also need to think outside that system to make a real difference.
I know that there is so much more that I don't know yet.
So, fellow educators! Thoughts? How do you navigate the murky waters of educational privilege? How do you balance your budget and your activism?