OakEdu Learning Centre

Oakville, education, centre, learning, French, tutoring, k12, literacy, numeracy, writing, math, science, history, geography, games, knowledge, immersion, private, training, quality, instruction

Home - Why - Who - What - How - Where - When

Special needs:

The typical student is in grade K-12 and is a normal learner. However, we also take care of some students with special needs: gifted, students with difficulty or cases where the family is in crisis, traveling, immigrants, young sportsmen, bed-ridden in the hospital, adults feeling uneducated, etc.

Crisis

During trying times and family emergencies, tutoring is sometimes necessary to keep up the good work. In fact, many families commence some kind of tutoring activities following a "crisis". Tutoring with OakEdu is reassuring. Once the shock is passed, it is wise and appropriate to setup new goals in life. Special circumstances are opportunities to initiate a new start, to re-orientate the life, to add new meaning, to give explanations and whereabouts on how things work. This is one of the rare times where motivation is high and thirst for knowledge is strong. Suggestibility and learning aptitude is high because people are weakened by the crisis. People try to re-establish a balance and a feeling of controlling / understanding the world. Consequently the mind opens up the doors and absorbs anything that can restabilize, preferably real knowledge. The student can welcome emotional and rational resources through discussion and placing things into perspective. Explanations are given, questions are asked, skills increase, self-identity strengthens and sometimes spiritual levels are discovered. OakEdu focuses on the intellectual level, although we encourage the student's physical, creative and artistic avenues of expression. However, it is always better to start learning with a tutor while in routine regular circumstances, where normal and stable life is there.

Difficulty

Some teenagers about to fail at school need to be 'rescued'. For those students with difficulty, OakEdu puts emphasis on mastering English and Math. Parents aid in determining the objective and an educational schedule is crafted to accommodate the student's outside commitments. Accumulated frustrations, struggling with homework and trouble at school, for years, build a feeling of low self-esteem, a loss of self-confidence and burnout scars which are extremely difficult to reverse. The lost student will benefit from OakEdu by filling up the gaps and recovering the lost ground. The student will learn at her/his own pace and can freely ask questions and complementary information. Gradually, the student will rebuild self-confidence and enjoy learning again, and sooner or later, will be up-to-speed enough to continue/return to classmates and peers at school, with an equivalent (or superior) level.
The limiting factors in intellectual development that OakEdu is able to handle are: "learning disability", "Attention Deficit Disorder", AD/HD and dyslexia. They generally originate from early childhood, at the emotional or physical level. Let aside physical (low eyesight, low earing perception, mental deficiency), the emotional level is deeply rooted and slow/difficult to alter. Strong emotional shocks could help quickly rebuild the personality, but they are rarely ecological, and don't respect the family system stability. Facing these limits, OakEdu's policy consists in adding a positive emotional layer to all intellectual activities, as described in pedagogy.
Children fall through the cracks because there is no one at school committed to their well-being, in a society where individuals are getting increasingly selfish and society becomes difficult to navigate. Research on child development and prevention of criminal behaviour point to a child's need for one caring adult to consistently believe in, and be committed to, their best interests. All children need a mentor. This adult can ideally be a family member but because of how life is, an external specialized professional like a tutor is advisable.

Gifted

When the student is just too smart for school, the teenager needs much more than just the school. Tutoring consists in multiplying abilities and enhancing cleverness. Instead of just being smart, the individual can become a genius, excelling in more fields. Smart learners are sometimes lacking perspective and organizational skills. OakEdu's task is therefore focused on developing effective strategies, here is an example:
- brainstorming / creativity: how to dream and imagine
- external resources: how to search additional material to enrich and sustain ideas
- exploitation / processing: how to organize those ideas, put a hierarchy and arrange them
- critical thinking: how to enlarge the frame, handle contradictions, inconsistencies and put ideas into perspective
- planning: how to design a plan optimizing resources in order to reach the goal
- implementing plan: how to execute, operate, put into actions and words
- delivering: how to express orally, how to improvise, how to fill up blank papers / word processor

Expats

Too many posts around the world can have disastrous consequences on the academic knowledge of children. When it occurs, OakEdu's on-line support helps reducing the stress of moving to new places and coming back to home. Keeping in touch over webcam or through emails can guarantee a continuous long-term education anywhere the new posting is located.