Being a math tutor in Montreal or other multicultural city is very tricky, because you have to worry about other factors than the normal one when you start a tutoring business.
Montreal’s demographic
Let’s start with the demographic situation in Montreal. In 2006, Statistics Canada listed around 600,000 persons in the visible minority group. In this group, you have Chinese’s people, people from South and Southeast Asia, Haitian’s people, Filipino and the person from Latin America. To these people, you have to add the Italian (around 260,000 persons), the Arab (around 100,000 persons), etc. All that in a city of 3,588,520 persons. Each community comes with their belief and habit, and all that translate in a different way of thinking the education of their children.
Being a math tutor in Montreal
This is where it all gets difficult. If you wan to be a math tutor in Montreal you need to learn the background of your student. First of all, you need to know his linguistic skill. Does he speak English, Mandarin, French, Spanish, etc. at home? Does he go to French or English school? Since when does he live in Montreal or Canada? Where did he live before? All that will affect the way you teach the student, because often his math problem can come from his difficulty to understand English or French. He got some really good arithmetic skill, but he doesn’t understand the problem. That’s why I love to start by, first, talking to my student just to know he’s linguistic level, and second, to tell them all the synonym of some math term. By example, I’ll tell them that 5+5, can be 5 plus 5 equal 10, add 5 to 5, addition 5 to 5, or the 5-5, can be 5 minus 5, subtract 5 to 5, etc. This very simple thing will save you and them a lot of time.
After the linguistic part is settled, you’ll have to know about is culture and how his parents think the education of their children. For some, you don’t need to give them homework, just the fact that they are doing an extra one or two hour of math by week is enough. For another culture, you have to give a lot of homework. It’s very important to put your belief apart from that. When I talk to my relative about what I do, they all think that kids need to play and weekend isn’t from homework. It’s their right to think that, but some parents think that three hours a week to guarantee their kids future isn’t that bad. Both are right if you ask me, so you must not judge or interfere.
That’s just two examples about how the context influences the role of the math tutor. You have to be aware of them when you teach and when you shop for a tutor or tutoring center. Like as always say: when you’re teaching math, the most important variable is the children. Always start with them, their backgrounds and their goals.