Elite private tutoring company, Tutors International, endorse strength-based education and recommend tailored home tutoring as a strength-based learning solution.
Strength-Based Education
OXFORD, UK: Tutors International are world-leaders in private home tuition, specialising in tailored teaching for the children of UHNWIs. The residential tutoring company have announced that they endorse strength-based education.
Edward Anderson, Professor of Doctoral Studies in Educational Leadership at Azusa Pacific University, defined strength-based learning as:
“A process of assessing, teaching, and designing experiential learning activities to help students identify their greatest talents, and to then develop and apply strengths based on those talents in the process of learning, intellectual development, and academic achievement to levels of personal excellence.”
Educational Psychologist, Shane J Lopez, and Education and Leadership Researcher, Michelle C Louis, distilled strength-based learning into five key principles: the measurement of strengths; individualisation and tailoring of teaching methods; networking to affirm strengths; application of strengths outside the classroom; and intentional development.
These principles fully align with Tutors International’s philosophy. The individualised teaching, the holistic approach to learning and the goal of personal excellence are all central to Tutors International’s way of working.
Strength-Based Tuition
Tutors International’s personalised service is what sets it apart from other private tutoring companies. They do not source tutors from a stock pool; rather, they conduct a global recruitment process for the perfect tutor on behalf of each of their Clients. This involves garnering a thorough understanding of the Client’s lifestyle and goals, as well as the child’s strengths, challenges, hobbies and learning style. Once this is understood, a job specification that reflects these individual requirements is written and published. A rigorous application process is carried out and the Account Manager interviews a shortlist. The two best candidates are presented to the Client, who then makes the final decision. This recruitment process ensures that the Tutor placed with each family is the best fit possible.
This method of recruiting tutors allows for a completely tailored education. The Tutor can adapt the curriculum to suit their student’s strengths and learning style. For example, one of Tutors International’s Tutors, who is currently based in Italy, has used his student’s love for rock climbing to teach physics. Lessons on Newton’s laws have been taking place on a cliff face.
This integration of hobbies and curricula can be taken one step further with personalised home tuition. Tutors International are able to source academic-vocational hybrid tutors. These are tutors that double as a vocational coach. Previous placements of this ilk have included karting coaches, acting support and sporting mentors. This is one way strength-based education allows activities and talents that are ordinarily considered extracurricular to become centralised.
Educating for the Modern (and Future) World
Ultimately, strength-based education plays an important role in Tutors International's tailored and holistic approach to education. It places the emphasis on learning through memorable experiences and natural aptitudes, as opposed to tuition for the sole purpose of passing exams. When private home tuition is as customised as Tutors International’s service, the education received by the child is more likely to equip them for globalised living, more likely to empower personal growth, and more fitting for the contemporary world.
Public conversation about education is shifting in favour of nurturing a strength-based culture and practice. The 2021 ‘Rethink: Education’ series on BBC Radio 4 discussed whether we are teaching the right content in the right way to prepare young minds for the future. The resurgence of schoolhouses and the boom in home tuition speaks to the increase in families striving for educational autonomy. Emerging interdisciplinary and holistic schools like the High Tech High collective and The Awen Project are marking a shift away from homogenous mainstream schooling. Strength-based education underpins the success of these ventures. Personalised tuition can work in conjunction with – and enhance – all of these practices and discussions.
Adam Caller
Founder and CEO of Tutors International, Adam Caller, comments on the role of strength-based education in modern teaching:
“An educator’s greatest challenge has always been to prepare young minds for the future when we can only base our teaching on experiences of the past. No teacher has ever known what the future that they are educating for might look like, but now more than ever, education seems to require radical revision. We find ourselves at the tipping point of an ecological crisis and we are looking at the origins of a so-called ‘metaverse’. Trying to educate for this coming world with the traditional methods and subjects feels inadequate.
“When we teach things that no longer align with the modern world, we miss the mark. Imparting knowledge on a young person, for whom a particular subject or topic might be irrelevant, is like trying to force the same poles of two magnets together – there will be inevitable resistance and no strong connection. It certainly won’t stick. Strength-based education, on the other hand, allows subjects and talents to attract each other. The learner and the topic have a strong connection, with neither repelling the other. This completely changes the learning culture for that student. They no longer associate learning with forced teaching from within the four walls of a classroom. Instead, learning becomes a lifelong venture that encourages personal growth, and moves with their minds and aptitudes, as opposed to against them.”
Empowering the Gifted and Talented; Empowering the ‘Underperformers’
Mainstream classrooms mean every child is taught the same content in the same way, despite the fact that every student has individual learning styles. This does not serve the students who find school challenging, nor does it serve the brightest children. Mr Caller elaborates:
“The students considered ‘underperformers’ may just be being taught the wrong things in the wrong way, meaning they become disenfranchised. This is summarised in the famous notion commonly attributed to Einstein: ‘Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid’. In short, strength-based education judges a fish by its ability to swim.”
By the same token, the needs of gifted and talented children are often neglected in a traditional classroom environment, because they are taught at a slower learning pace than one that would nurture their potential. This can make it just as easy for a child to under-perform, lose interest, or withdraw completely if the education they are receiving does not challenge them as an individual or speak to their specific interests and talents. Strength-based education accommodates their elevated learning pace.
Strength-based Tutoring with Tutors International
Private home tutors allow strength-based teaching. One-to-one tuition enables the individual needs, learning styles, talents and challenges to be worked with in a completely personalised way. Tutors International specialise in sourcing a perfectly matched tutor for each child. With 22 years of experience, they have established their reputation for accommodating specialist and unique requirements. This results in placing the best tutors in the world in positions that deliver an optimised, tailored, first-rate education.
If you are looking for a tutor to provide tailored one-to-one tuition for your child or children, make an initial enquiry via Tutors International’s form here: http://localhost/enquiry
