What is Private Practice Teaching®?

When I tell people that I own my own teaching business as a private practice teacher, the conversation that follows usually goes something like this:

"Oh, so you give private lessons? "– Sort of. It’s more than lessons. I teach. I do all the parts of teaching including develop the curriculum; determine the desired learning outcomes; assess where the learners are currently and then develop a plan of how to get them to the next levels all while tailoring instruction to their unique interests and learning styles.

"How is that different from tutoring?" – Tutoring is more like homework help. With tutoring, students already have a teacher that does all of the teaching. When tutoring, I only provide additional instruction and practice to support what’s being done in their actual class. In private teaching, I do the actual class.

It occurs to me that part of the confusion may be that most people don’t really know what teachers do inside the classroom or not. To be honest, how could they? What students see in the classroom is only one part of what we actually do. Most adults only experiences with teachers was as students themselves or as parents during Back-to-School night or parent/teacher conferences. Even as teachers, I think we can be so caught up in just doing everything we do, that even WE don’t realize all the different things we’re actually doing!

So what exactly is private practice teaching? It’s doing all the things we need to do to help our students achieve their learning goals, but working for ourselves – not a district, not a private school system, not a charter school, not an online learning community – ourselves.

As a private practice teacher, I …

• develop curricula

• design lessons and projects

• create resources

• create and maintain organizational systems to manage workflow

• teach face to face and asynchronously

• provide meaningful feedback

• am accessible and responsive to my students’ needs

• pursue my own professional development

• set my own hours and schedule

• chose who I work with

• decide how much my time is worth

• manage my own business and marketing

As a private practice teacher, I do not …

• grade

• submit grades

• turn in lesson plans

• attend faculty meetings or professional development that has nothing to do with my job

• have bus duty, cafeteria duty or cover study halls

• write disciplinary reports

Other Master’s level professionals are able to own private practice businesses. With a Master’s degree in psychology or social work I could be a private practice counselor or therapist. Doctors, lawyers, occupational therapists, financial advisors, and more can all take their expertise, knowledge and skills to open their own private practice businesses working for themselves. So why not teachers? We are highly skilled, highly educated professionals. Why shouldn't we be able to to open our own private practice teaching businesses too?

I can tell you from experience, there IS a market for what we are uniquely qualified to do.