Know It All Tutors provides expert one to one tutoring for every subject, grade level, and test. Math through Calculus, Statistics, Spanish, French, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Writing Skills, ACT, SAT, & GRE Prep, Nursing School, Elementary Education to Grad School, and much more. Sessions available at one of our convenient locations or online via Zoom. Flexible scheduling. Always one to one.
What does Know It All Tutors do?
Know It All Tutors provides one to one tutoring for students of all ages, from elementary reading and math skills through all AP courses and college level calculus, chemistry, physics, writing skills. We also work with students in nursing school, studying for the EMT exam, Vet Tech exam, taking accounting classes, computer science, the ACT and SAT exams, and nearly every subject and test. The concept of Know It All is not focused on our staff being Know It Alls, although we do try, but it is more a philosophy of empowerment than it is a description of who we are. The reality is that if you want to really know something, gain expertise in something, you should try to know it all. But why? Don't we want our doctors, teachers, accountants, the engineers and computer scientists designing our future, the paramedic who just passed the EMT exam, our air traffic controllers, to try to know it all, to be on their "A-game", so that we can rely on them to perform to the best of their abilities? We don't need to know it all about everything, just the things that we personally and individually find important or interesting. Why not Know It All?
What is the most popular request?
Math is very unforgiving. It demands focus, accuracy, patience. Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, PreCalculus, Statistics- they are precise. -8 is not the same as +8. A negative bank balance is certainly not the same as a positive. A rocket heading up is vastly different from one heading down. And this translates to money, science, technology, construction, every field. The better one is at math, the stronger chance one has for success.
When did you start tutoring? Why did you create a company for tutors to teach others?
It was 40 years ago, 1984, and my family was struggling to make ends meet. I'd been doing jobs in the neighborhood for about 2 years, since I was 13, washing windows, cars, pet sitting, babysitting, housecleaning, gardening, to help out at home. My mother suggested, since I was an A student, that I write a letter to the counselors at my school, letting them know that I was available to tutor students and that my goal was to help out financially at home (see letters attached). A few weeks later, parents in the community began contacting me to schedule their kids for tutoring sessions, and I began to work with dozens of students whose parents would drop them at our apartment after school and on weekends. 8 years later, 2 years after I finished college, in 1992 I opened my first location. I was 23 years old. 2 years later, I was managing 3 locations. I learned quite a bit from the 12,000 families that we've helped. My son and daughter are now in their mid-20's, and they are involved in running Know It All Tutors.
Where does Know It All provide its services? Online, in-person?
We have location hubs throughout the state: office space on demand and available at public libraries, even Barnes and Noble and Starbucks.
Zoom sessions are very popular. With the increasingly common use of online textbooks and school portals and platforms such as Canvas or Schoology or Aeries, materials are readily available on screen with direct one to one live instruction tailored individually to each student's needs.
What are your concerns about where we're headed educationally as a state, a nation?
Nothing can be blamed on our children. Whatever issues we deal with in the world, the youth did not create them. We cannot blame kids for thinking money comes from a phone. A cashless society dumbs people down because there is a disconnect between numbers. We press buttons, and now students don't have anything to envision when they are working with numbers. A quarter is a fourth of a dollar. Using change teaches the percent system, because someone can see that you need 20 nickels to make a dollar. Each nickel is 5 cents is 5% per-cent, 5 out of 100, and you need 20 nickels to make a 100 cents = 1 dollar. The same system exists with the $1, $5, $10, $20, $100 bill. Math and money work well together. Same with a deck of cards. Few realize that the 52 cards in a deck represent the 52 weeks in the year. The 4 suits = the 4 seasons. Each season is 13 weeks long, and from the Ace through the King, there are 13 cards. The 360 degrees in a circle represent the 365 days it takes for the earth to rotate or "circle" around the sun, and 360 is divisible by 12 and 24 and 60, which allow each day to be broken up into the seconds and minutes and hours of the day in perfect symmetry. a fourth of a circle = 90 degrees = 90 days approximately equals 3 months. When you do a 180, you turn half the circle. Time and the daily rotation of our planet and the annual orbit around the sun are part of our life math, and when you add something countable, like money into the picture, math becomes easier to understand. It's reliable. There are patterns. Besides, when your kids can quickly compute 30% off something they want, but they remember to compute the tax and tell you the total, they most likely have earned the thing they want by showing that they "understand" the numbers that represent the dollars of what they want. Essentially, a few changes in how our country teaches math and how it relates to finances and money will greatly improve our well being, and enhance our ability to thrive in this increasingly complex world. Bottom line: It's all in the numbers.
What should people be doing this summer?
Math prep for fall classes. Anything to prevent the "Summer Slide". 8-12 hours of Math Readiness to get ready for the new semester is highly advisable. Each Know It All program is tailored to each individual.