All teachers recognise them, probably with no small twinge of guilt when they recall the times they allowed them to play the cloak of invisibility game. I’m talking about those middle of the road students, never destined to be academic high fliers nor spectacular failures. The type of students who seem to plod through their schooling without drawing too much attention to themselves. The type of students you see year after year and whose name escapes you when they turn up at a reunion some years later.
In the busy life of a teacher dealing with the numerous slings and arrows of daily school or college life, it is sometimes shamefully easy to let these students slip through the net without giving them that extra push they so badly need to strive for higher grades. They rarely ask for help and just as rarely offer any real cause for concern, not like the demanding bright students who are never satisfied with their achievements and constantly want better; nor the bright underachievers who are too lazy or otherwise distracted by their busy little lives to exert themselves to greater success.
These are the students for whom the accessibility and anonymity of online tutoring or college homework help sites could be most beneficial. They don’t need to engage with their peers or face their fears in approaching their busy professor for extra guidance. They can simply seek the online tutoring help they require to be able to turn in class assignments or school or college homework on time and with that extra helping of confidence they need.
Busy classroom teachers or parents should therefore not shun or criticise online tutoring, but see it as an educational aid for the many and a potential lifeline for the few. The majority of educators engaged in online tutoring have exactly the same urge to help as those in the classroom – indeed many of them work in the classroom as well as offering online tutoring help. They are therefore well equipped to recognise those average achievers needing that extra boost of confidence to exceed their safe middle-range targets, as they fulfil their role as an instructor.
Whether teachers are classroom-based or work as online tutors, they all work to the same goal, wanting the best for their students, no matter if their names are known to them or not. Online tutoring is not and should never become a euphemism for cheating. Students who expect such will learn their lessons in life the hard way when they are eventually held to account. It is rare for cheats to go through life without ever being challenged. It’s impossible to say whether the old adage “cheats never prosper” is always true, but for the most part, it should be. Perhaps it should be modified to “cheats have a high chance of being discovered and must therefore be prepared to take the consequences when that happens”.
Used correctly, online tutoring for school or college homework help can benefit all students enormously. Everyone needs a little extra help in understanding academic problems at times. Used well, online tutoring can help transform that middle of the road student into an academic high flier.