Harry had been sent to the best primary schools - and when that didn't work out, he was provided with tutors from the endless pool of starving students.
In about eight months or so, I will be one of those (hopefully not starving) students. I'll be moving out to London to live with my aunt and uncle in a rather nice middle-class neighbourhood, while I study and work to prepare for university the following year. They know a lot of the parents around there and suggested that I begin teaching small groups of 8-to-12 year old children for maybe an hour or two regularly, and charge their parents/guardians a reasonable sum per child. I would be teaching them math and science in all likelihood. Apparently word will get around quickly if I'm competent so I might have a substantial number of customers within a few months.
My questions:
- Does anybody on LessWrong have any direct experience at this sort of thing, that could share some advice?
- What are some good things to teach? I'll probably do the standard bottle rockets and baking soda+vinegar volcanoes, but I'd also want to spice things up and teach them something that they'd be hard-pressed to come across elsewhere (simple rationality techniques come to mind)
- What is the best way to teach these things to this age group - or rather, what are some good books or other resources that I can use to teach myself how to teach?
- If I were to teach them some basic rationality skills, which ones and how? Obviously I won't be talking about anything fancy like probability theory unless I strike gold and find a kid on the far-right of the bellcurve, but more like low-hanging fruit. I might do something like that radiator puzzle to warn them against password-guessing for example.
Given the international nature of the internet, it would be helpful to provide clarifying definitions for country-specific terms.
Good point, fixed.