Here I Go .... Thinking Again ....

My tutoring business is going well ... I have been busier and busier (more and more busy?) each week since I started in September ... and that is good. My evening sessions are now FULL ... unless I decide to tutor some 5-6 sessions, too. I am still trying to gather some more daytime work. I lost a family of 3 for my homeschool classes ... at least, I assume I lost them .... they have stopped coming and haven't called ... but they were having all kinds of issues with Divorce and Money and Moving and Transportation .... and now they are WAY behind ....

Anyway .... I will probably stay busy until Christmas Holidays. But after Christmas vacation, Lewisville Public high schools start over again with brand new students in brand new classes ... so almost all of my evening hours will be empty until students start failing and parents start calling ... around the last week in January.

In a way, that is good .... because I just found out that I need to have major abdominal surgery so I am scheduling it for Dec. 28th and will be recovering for most of January, anyway.

But it is bad because if I don't work, I don't make money ... and if I don't make money ... well ... then things get tight around here!! And I don't like that!!

So .... I have been thinking .... which is quite often a very dangerous thing for me to do ... but I couldn't sleep one night so my little brain just started churning .... How can I make money without actually working?? Especially during the summer when I want to be off ... but still want money coming in ... (that was one nice thing about being a teacher ... those summer paychecks!!)

Well ... in the Summer I did a lot of TAKS Exit Level Math tutoring for students who failed the TAKS Math section in the Spring of their Junior year. They have to pass all 4 sections of the TAKS in order to graduate at the end of their Senior year. Many of them choose to re-take the Math section in July when it is offered again. So I picked up some work tutoring those kids. And it was good work and good money .... but basically I was doing the same problems over and over again for each new student I got ... saying the same things ... making the same lame jokes ... telling the same stories .... empathizing with the students .... cursing the evilness of all things TAKS, etc. And I was paid $40/hr to do this over and over again .... usually for 10 hours each student .... that's $400 (for those of you who don't know Math). And that is a lot of money for people to spend .... many many cannot afford that kind of personal one-on-one help!

Soooo .... I got to thinking .... what if I make a DVD or an Interactive CD for the computer of ME teaching TAKS. Me doing the very problems out the the very book that all student who fail the TAKS get for free from the State? Me being Me .... Irreverence and all. The book has lots of problems for each of the 10 objectives ... and it has answers AND written explanations for each problem .... but some people need to SEE the problem done ... and HEAR the problem explained to actually begin to understand.

What if I make this video ... in some usable format ... and sell it to people who need help? Then they have me right there on their computer ... and they can pause and rewind and listen and learn .... and if they still need personal help ... they can hire me. We could sell this CD/DVD for a very reasonable price ... like $40. AND we could let people download stuff from my website ... maybe have it set up by Objective ... let them download an Objective for $9.99 .... thinking ... thinking ... thinking ....

That way .... I could do all the work ONCE ... on film ... and thousands could benefit from it!!

22,000 seniors DID NOT graduate last year because of TAKS. Isn't that awful??

Anyway .... we are going to try to run with this idea ... will need someone to film it and edit it for us .... and the supplies I'll need are minimal ... a white board ... markers ... TI-overhead thingy ... an overhead .... personality .... witt .... charm ....

And if it is a hit ... well we will take it from there ....