tutor

center director

center manager

mathematics teacher

instructor

Mathnasium

I didn't think I would ever even write one of these, much less a super long one. Whoops!

Fast-paced but easy-going work environment at the one I was at. They're all owned by individual people, so it really depends on the owner/director! Anyone can buy one, I would recommend working at one where the (if the owner and director are the same person) that they actually have math knowledge. I would imagine it to be stressful if they didn't.

Coworkers ranged from high school sophomores to elderly retired teachers. Ideal job for people in college who want to work part-time and enjoy math and being around children/teenagers. Be aware that the more instructors that work there, the less hours you will get! It's slower in the summer, so be prepared for even less hours than during the usual school year.

This part is super specific to my experience with my boss at my Mathnasium that I worked at.
**************************************************************
[Going to refer to my director/owner as "they/them" to keep it as unidentifiable as possible. They owned and directed and are one person.]
My director asked a little too much from the instructors as far as veering from typical job description. They were very intelligent and I learned a lot from them. Overall, I admired them for the way their brain worked and all the experience they had. However, I noticed they took advantage of the employees often. They hated hiring new people and only would only hire enough so that we could barely handle it on our busiest day with every staff member working. They cut corners a lot and it usually fell on the instructors' backs so they could be "frugal".
Also, I'm not sure how common it is to have the instructors also do ALL the cleaning in the center, at the end of every day (and deep cleaning once a week), but we had to. Cleaning kid-messes is annoying and sometimes disgusting, especially in the bathroom. I feel my $10/11 did not pay enough for that, compounded onto spending a whole evening tutoring. Our director would send everyone home within the last hour before close (admitted to doing that to save on payroll costs) and have the same last 2 clean the center everyday. 2 because that's the minimum requirement of instructors that have to be present in the center, as per Mathnasium standards. I'm sure they would've only had 1 cleaning if they could've. They would occasionally bring us treats, but it for sure did not compensate for all the gross cleaning we did. This is probably my only major qualm about working there. But again, I'm not sure how many Mathnasium owners do that, or if they maybe hire janitorial services. Just be weary that they pay for everything (the building rent, the supplies, etc.) and some owners refuse to accept the fact that there is RISK in owning a business, and may make *you* deal with their refusal of that fact. 
Business wasn't even bad, it actually grew double from when I started working there to when I quit. They just wanted their profits to keep growing and growing instead of being satisfied with doing well, without doing any of the work themselves.
**************************************************************

BUT ANYWAYS, back to the general stuff!

If you're not a good communicator, have poor patience or a bad temper, not good at finding alternatives quickly, or otherwise lacking in necessary tutoring-centeric traits, etc., I would advise not working in a place like this. You are dealing with only children for hours, some of which HATE math, think tutoring is a waste of their time, or that it's a punishment from their parents. You have to be understanding and help the students want to turn their attitude around about math. You have to be willing to learn the common core methods! I know a lot of people are against that, but that's just how kids are learning these days. Most Mathnasiums set a time aside for homework so be ready for the crazy stuff kids are learning in school these days. There was occasionally some stuff I'd never even seen before! The good thing is that you are frequently switching students with other instructors anyways, so if you aren't confident with the homework the kid brings in, you can collaborate with another instructor or just switch students with them. Even as an instructor, I was learning a new math concept every few months! Being able to admit when you don't know something/have never seen it before is also really important, as you don't want to be teaching a student something incorrectly or improvised. Kids are pretty perceptive at sniffing out when you don't know what you're talking about anyways! They'll definitely tell their parents and your director will probably hear about it. Just save yourself the embarrassment and know when to call for help :) 

It was very rewarding when the kids (especially the anti-math ones) understood something finally and their faces lit up! You just have to be patient and make it fun for them. Being able to find alternative methods to teach was fun for me, personally. The curriculum is well-written and easy to understand. It usually does the hard part for you, honestly. You're mostly just there to clarify, answer questions, and grade papers (with an answer key on-hand). If it's actually too hard for the student, you just let the education coordinator or director know and they'll assess the situation to give them a more on-level lesson. 

For the most part, I enjoyed my time there! I worked there for 2 whole years. I taught a lot of kids a lot of things and made the math-haters more math-tolerant :) and it's really fun working with the kids who came in already being math-lovers, it's like you're feeding off each other's energy. 
You're just chilling in a chair and doing, for the most part, pretty easy math you have probably seen at least 300 times in grade school. Kids these days are so cool and goofy, teaching them was such a blast. It was a very illuminating experience. I would recommend this job to anyone who is good with kids and math.

I started as an instructor and climbed my way through the ranks to management.

As an instructor, you're not paid well, and your job is fast paced. You would make 3x as much money with a third of the work load if you do private tutoring. However, the hours are good for those who go to school, and there's plenty of em. You have to work through students binders on material tailored to them, as well as HW help, all within the hour they are there. Update parents at the end of the session. You will be working with multiple students at a time. However, it is a rewarding position. 

Being a lead instructor is probably the best position available imo. It's a good mix of behind the scenes work, as well as instructing and managing the teaching floor.  A nice balance between sales and teaching. Also the increase in pay is nice, but still not enough. Overall, you will still be spread thin and expected to do more than your job description says you're gonna do. There's less expectations from you since you're not management, but there's a good chance you will be given management level tasks to do.

Being an assistant manager/manager is a sales job. They preach about how much you should care about the kids, and that it should be the #1 priority, but if your retention rate is low, or your turn over rate is high, then there's problems. They'll start changing program rules and guidelines to get money. Even students who have attended for years won't be grandfathered in to policies, despite signing a contract for those grandfathered policies. As an assistant manager, you also aren't commissioned, only the manager is. Expect to do lots of phone calls, both hot leads and cold calls, as well as pushing hard on long term contracts, and trying to convince unhappy families to stay in the program. 

As manager, it's pretty much the same exact thing as assistant manager, except you have to attend company calls/meetings, and you get "commissions". But the commissions are based on you hitting THEIR sales goal (quota), not how much you sell in general. (I.e if the goal they set for you is 25k a month in revenue, and you are at 20k this month, you don't get the bonus). Also, the working hours are way longer than you'd think, about 50-60 hour work weeks easy. If you don't make your staff do some of your work for you, or as they like to call it "delegate tasks to your team", then expect longer hours. 

OVERALL, I'd say it's a very fulfilling job. Its great seeing a difference you make in students lives, and seeing their parents stress free when they initially come in stressed. If you're struggling to find something, it's somewhat consistent.  If you're an instructor, expect to be overworked and underpaid. If you're management, expect to be VERY overworked and underpaid. They like to preach about "being a family", and they have inspirational quotes everywhere in center and in the offices. Definitely toxic business culture. 

Average day: I often clock-in at 3 PM - 6 PM. I go between instructing 3 - 4 students at the same time, often elementary. Fast paced. Expected to switch between instruction flow/chain of thought several times throughout the hour. If you have a hard time multitasking or remembering where you left off, you're going to have a rough time. Must know how to handle basic child behavior issues, ask good questions, slow down and speed up when needed (go at the student's pace).
I have learned so much. Most importantly, I have learned how to make math make sense to them. If you're good at just "getting math" but bad a verbalizing what, how, or why math works, you're going to have a rough time. Must be patience, empathetic, friendly while professional. You got to know how not to be a doormat with these kids. Kids need appropriate boundaries set; you must be comfortable setting boundaries with them or working with an admin to help you with their behavioral issues. 
Management was good. Previous boss was harsh with the instructors but very competent at his job, relentlessly demanding excellence from his team. Current management is involved, good with parents, okay with kids, but poor with equipping their new instructors with online or in-person training. Drops them in the deep-in, sink or swim. Not great. Kids need a competent instructor to help them with their varied needs. Very part time. Not great hours for someone who actually needs income, but its nice side money for those who are great at math or have people/children skills.
Hardest part of the job: slowing down, putting aside what I know about math in favor of what makes sense to the student, clearly articulating my intuitions into coherent thoughts, rapidly switching between students and trains-of-thought several times per hour, and having a boss that relentlessly demanded excellence. 
Workplace culture: it was good. We used to have a team that enjoyed occasional games (DND) on the side or shared math/STEM memes on a Discord channel. Now, we don't really talk to each other much anymore. Not much comradery. We are not unfriendly to each other, it's just now discouraged to chat with each other since it distracts from instructing the kids, and there aren't outside events provided to encourage that workplace culture.
Most enjoyable part: seeing those breakthrough "ah-ha" moments with the kids and having them thank you for helping them. It's not often, but every once in a while, I get to see students go from elementary to middle, middle to high school, or high school to gradate. It is an honor to see these kids grow up if you stick around long enough.

I've been working at Mathnasium for many years now, starting as an instructor and now promoted to Lead Instructor.  I have worked at nearly every South Florida center and I've personally met and worked with dozens of employees and hundreds of students over the years.

For my money, this company is a fantastic place to work if you're talented with math and teaching, and you need some work experience or want to better students' lives.  There are a few reasons for this:

1) The method for teaching that the company advertises not only works, but it has honestly helped me to streamline my knowledge of many subjects over the years, as well as forcing me to brush up on topics that I glossed over when I was in school, including probability and Geometry (the bane of high schoolers).  The whole process works as advertised and it genuinely makes me feel good to be selling a product I have seen work and that helps me every day in small ways.

2) I took this job originally because I was a high schooler and I needed a job, but time and again I have been thankful that this job has adapted to me ever-changing school schedule and lifestyle.  When I was new the hours were less than I wanted, but with time I came to work almost 20 hours a week - while some instructors can only work 10 or less because of scheduling.  Unfortunately, when there is an over saturation of instructors the hours spread thinly, but that's to be expected.

3) The environment is very positive.  The center directors always make sure the teams are tight-knit, because it helps everything flow more easily.  You'll be working in close proximity to your instructors in fast-paced and stressful environments most days, so it's very important you learn to trust your peers and ask for help when you need it, and the culture in the centers always supports that.

The hardest parts of the job depend on your skillset.  For some, it's time management - being able to work with 4 students and not fall behind grading, logging, watching, and instructing all at once.  For others, it's professionalism - many instructors begin out of high school, and are not used to being in the role of 'expert,' with all of the expectations and perks that accompany that role.  For me, the hardest part was drawing a line with the students between being friendly with them and being their friend, especially the students that are there to have fun AND learn.

I worked at two of the Mathnasium franchises. It was a pretty good experience! As a student at the time, I got to sharpen my mental math and get to learn ways to understand things more clearly. The kids are always the best part of any teaching job. The worst part can be the hard kids. After college, there's not a lot of room to grow besides being a center director or an assistant center director, so you can outgrow the job pretty quickly. If you're there to interact with the kids and actually teach them, you won't ever really want to get promoted. Plus, you can only ever work there from 2-8pm, so hours (as well as rate) for an educator will never really be attractive for other than a part-time gig.

Their intent is clearly to tap into the highly skilled and barely experienced demographic that are STEM students. Once students are done with their degree, they tend to move to bigger and better just as Mathnasium moves on to younger and cheaper. I'm not saying it's a bad business model, it would just be great if for educators, there would be an option to move on to bigger and better within the company, and for students, if there would be an option to see services like Mathnasium implemented in their regular curriculum. It probably doesn't make sense from a business/logistics standpoint which is why this doesn't happen.

One of the biggest cons is that the service is quite expensive for families so if one of your intentions is to help underserved communities, Mathnasium is not the right place. Another con is how much time you actually work during your scheduled hours. You tend to teach back, to back, to back. You never really have a lull period where there's a 10-minute transition or some sort of break or "water cooler moments" where you would get to know your coworkers or crack a joke to have fun. Everyone working there has incredible laser focus, which can be good for productivity, but it feels both exhausting mentally and generally sad that you don't get to know your team at all.

Everyone was nice and helpful and I enjoyed the work! But ultimately it was just another tutoring job that wants to squeeze out as much work as possible from employees without offering them fair compensation. 

My biggest issue:
I was lied to during onboarding about prep time for instructors, then my manager acted like he never lied to me. I was told instructors get “as much prep time as needed to do good work” when I’d specifically asked if there was a time limit. Later, I was told 15-20 min is a good range to work within at first, eventually narrowing that down to 5min. Since I was given 2 different expectations between onboarding and then, I wasn’t sure which one to believe! 
AFTER I got methods certified, I learned that prep time is at a hard cap of 5min per student (that includes prepping for three different topics and writing a note to parents afterward). 

Mathnasium’s answer keys are ONLY answers, not work that is worked out, and only some of them have tips for teaching the content. Sometimes, the links to the answer keys didn’t work. EXPECT TO DO YOUR OWN LESSON PLANNING, except, oh wait, you don’t get more than 5min per student to do that.

I was also not given important tax information during my onboarding process. If you’re hired as an online tutor and don’t live in the same state as the center hiring you, you won’t be a W-2 worker but rather a 1099 contract worker. That means you’ll be paying your taxes quarterly/differently—maybe this is common knowledge, but it wasn’t for me! I had to figure it out on my own.

Bottom line: I enjoyed this job and was sad that this was the true nature of it. It’s not worth it; you can find something better.

A typical day of work includes checking the kid's temperatures at the door and having them wash their hands before getting started with their assigned worksheets. There's a manageable ratio of three kids to one instructor in a well-spaced environment. If I ever have trouble helping a student solve a problem with their assigned homework then I always have dependable and respectful coworkers who can help. 

Management is super friendly and understandable, especially if you need even up to a month off. I have even been able to transfer between working in Lafayette during my college semesters at ULL and at the New Orleans center when I'm off for my winter and summer breaks. Also, if you are at high-risk for Covid, then you can also choose to only work at home online. 

The scheduling is super flexible and you determine which days and hours you work each week. (Additionally, the place is only open from 3 pm to 7:30 pm, so personally, I find I can handle my 16 credit hours of college and a 4 day work week. I highly enjoy that the shifts are short and we are not open late, so I can easily manage my time.)

The most enjoyable part of the job is being able to inspire and encourage a student to learn a subject that they may hate and see their eyes light up when they finally understand and master a problem. There are also math games that you can play with the students and the kids are very sweet.

Overall, the workplace is enjoyable with a flexible schedule (great for part-time college students). I've learned how to explain things in a more concise manner and even developed new techniques for math along the way.

Opening in the afternoon, mathnasium offers a pace-paced environment ideal in many ways for current college students. Teaching up to three students at one time, you have one or two other instructors in your area that can assist you when needed. 
Management is constantly seeking to improve instructor knowledge through assessments and worksheets that the students use to ensure we are familiar with the topics and can teach it the Mathnasium way. The math program itself works well as we teach for understanding not just to cover topics to get an answer.
That said, management constantly seeks for us to get better. While we can get up and take breaks, the fast-paced nature of the job provides little downtime for them. Management often seems better at providing feedback on what we missed rather than successes.
Most enjoyable part is working with students and seeing that "A-ha" moment when they realize they understand the concept. Hardest part of the job is dealing with some of the difficult children who don't feel like working and can potentially derail other students' work. 
Each work day is a bit different. Students can come for instruction at their convenience 2-3 times a week. With no appointments, there is a rush around dinner time and can be very stressful during the school year when trying to instruct three students while simultaneously grading their homework.
Offer flexible scheduling, although could provide the schedule a bit further in advance than the day before the start of the work week.

A typical shift at Mathnasium is about 4 hours. Each hour you will be working with 2-4 students and then you will get another group of students. Typically the age group will increase throughout your shift. 
I learned how to be patient with all age groups and how to motivate them in different ways by talking to them about their hobbies and what drives them. Each student will have days that are more productive than others and it is important not to undermine their work and progress. I was able to learn a lot of different teaching techniques and how every student learns differently.
The owner at the location I worked for was excellent with communication and transparency as well as just being a great person, especially with the kids. There isn't any time to get to know your coworkers at this type of establishment, but you will be working very closely with the kids and their education.
The hardest part of this job was trying to help those that were unmotivated or struggling with certain concepts. Everyone knows long division isn't fun and it's really long, but trying to get the kids to complete that packet had to be the hardest part.
I really enjoyed being able to challenge myself in learning new ways to teach. Not every student "sees" a concept the same way and being able to come up with different ways to explain the same concepts was really fun.

I have been working at my center for 4 years and have functioned as an instructor and lead instructor and really love the work and the people. The Mathnasium Method is very sound and the cap of never having more than 3 students at your table (2 online and in person now) really gives the right amount of interaction, plus you really get the chance to be some students’ important person that helped them gain confidence in their studies.

That said, as Mathnasium is a franchise it really depends on the specific center/owner you’re working for as there are some who treat this like they would if they ran any franchise and then there are those owners/directors who are seriously invested in education and supporting not only the students but the growth of the instructors as well. The downsides are the somewhat limited opportunities for advancement (unless you want to be a center director) and lower pay rate which are offset by the awesome work environment and support, especially working remote.

I highly recommend to any students who are looking for part-time work and want to get better with their math or people skills. They will help you learn more material, so if you’re good at explaining things and have patience to work with (sometimes as young as first grade) students, you’ll do great!

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Tutor 1253 salaries reported	$16.58 per hour
Center director 392 salaries reported	$50,959 per year
Center manager 88 salaries reported	$20.73 per hour
Mathematics teacher 321 salaries reported	$17.61 per hour
Instructor 491 salaries reported	$14.70 per hour

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