Q: Why did you decide to write this book, and what do you hope readers will take away from Anna’s story?
I wanted to write this book because all my years as a tutor almost made me forget why I wanted to be a teacher in the first place. Hearing frustrated colleagues complain “I’m tired of grading homework that is so clearly written by my students’ tutors” was hard for me. Harder still when many of them (myself included) left to tutor full time because we figured, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”
Someone needed to tell this story. Having left both the private school and the tutoring world, I knew I had the experience and the perspective to reveal the truth. At the very least, I think people need to really question the validity of tutoring and its place in education today. On the grandest scale, I hope to emphasize a system of schooling in which the learning and the work gets done in school.
Q: Why did you decide to title your novel Schooled?
The real schooling in Schooled is Anna Taggert’s learning experience. She wants to be the kind of teacher that inspires her students to love literature as much as she does, but very quickly realizes that for some students (and their families), there is no love of learning. There is only a quest for high grades that garner admission to top universities and the status that comes with them. Anna too is lured into this world of status and her life quickly begins to parallel the very worst of what she sees at Langdon Hall. . .until she finally learns her lesson and is “schooled” back to reality.
Q: An internet search on “Manhattan tutors” reveals a wealth of options for parents looking for help for their children. What can they learn from SCHOOLED that they can’t find elsewhere?
Schooled exposes the underground world of tutoring. Because I was a teacher and a tutor, I am able to give my readers a 360° view of this world: the parents, the teachers, the tutors, and the students. Anna Taggert goes into the classroom, but she also goes into the apartments (and penthouses and townhouses) of the students she tutors. It’s an insider’s story of what really goes on after school and while names and situations have been altered to protect the innocent (and the not-so-innocent) the entire novel stems from personal experiences. Furthermore, parents who have never hired a tutor – or don’t even know about this tutoring phenomenon – can get a peek into a rarified world that is affecting children nationwide.
Q: As an Upper East Side tutor, you billed at rates that would impress any corporate lawyer – upwards of $200 an hour. Money aside, what are the issues some parents are not considering in this scenario?
Schooled is about a world where even homework has a price. What these parents aren’t considering is that they are raising a generation of what I call “cruisers,” children whose parents allow them to cruise through their early years with a staff of adults who help them with every obstacle they encounter. How are these little cruisers expected to grow up into competent, capable adults?
Q: What do you think of other portrayals of lives of privileged students, such as the show Gossip Girl?
Gossip Girl presents the most over-the-top, exaggerated version of the lives of privileged students who live on the Upper East Side. At times the show is glossy and superficial, but it does portray some of the kernels of dark truths that you will also find in Schooled. Have I missed a single episode? Absolutely not. . .