Credits

I would like here to convey my deep thanks to all my students.  An educator lives wishing to educate.  Your attentive listening and desire to learn is a powerful motivational factor that helps me think, stay on the rails, and do the things I do.  It is always a deep honor to teach anyone something important.

I would like here especially to honor my parents.  I would not have a fraction of the abilities I have, or the charity I bring to my teaching, were it not for the utterly difficult love my mother and father had for me.  My father taught me as a wee tot, by drawing on a napkin to explain why warm air rises, and how wind comes to be.  He trusted me as a young highschooler to help lead an English reading group of Chinese seminary students, and encouraged me with my first experience of giving a talk before a large audience.  My mother’s sacrificial love did not only provide me with all I needed; it also helped me see things I otherwise would have missed.  I would rather tell you the exciting story of my amazing parents, than my own story.  But that is not ‘the convention’ of a business site, and understanding and honoring conventions is also quite important.

I would also like to express my abundant thanks for the parents of my students.  Without their loving hand in teaching their children, I would not have been able to teach what I taught.  Only with a thorough understanding and support of parents was I able to use certain unconventional techniques; techniques which are indeed evidence-based, but simply rather uncommon.  In some ways, this makes them pioneers in education; they help me learn what works and what does not work.  And the uncertainty of trying a new technique can only be done safely with a parent’s loving support in case there are any unintended effects on the child.

To be written: More on my amazing teachers and professors.  An article on hyperlinks as a modality of past-consciousness and a concrete manifestation of healthy sensibilities of time-consciousness.  Hyperlinks and the philosophy of giving thanks — Heidegger, others.  The importance of inculcating thankfulness in a non-sentimentalizing way.

Esteemed Competitors

Suzanne Davis of AcademicWritingSuccess.com has already taught me a great deal about useful online tutoring technologies, and I plan to use some of her work materials in the future with students.  She has a very giving heart, helping other online writing tutors with their craft, despite the fact that they are potential competitors for the same clients.

Her fine example has helped me to have the courage to run my business in a way which does not exaggerate competitive behavior, and leaves plenty of room for others in this area of service which I am convinced is utterly important in today’s educational environment.  Ample experience with students struggling with writing tells me loud and clear: “We need more good writing tutors!!”

Joanne Kaminski of TheOnlineReadingTutor.com is likewise an exemplary, charitable tutor who helps young children “close the reading gap.”  She is thus not so much a ‘competitor’ as someone offering complimentary services, as no one should try to become a great writer without first becoming a great reader.  If I were king of the world, all children would have writing tutors who were also PhD’s in World Literature.

Hundreds, perhaps even thousands of online tutors have benefitted from her willingness to share trade ‘secrets’ – enabling young people all over the world to get better education through knowledgeable, improved online tutoring.  Many of the world’s most helpful people whose work benefits us the most profoundly “fly under the radar,” with little recognition.  I would have lost many wonderful opportunities were it not for her graceful, gentle nudging in the right direction.

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