A lot of students need help doing homework or need a tutor but due to the high costs, this isn’t available to everyone. Darine changes this.
Tutoring for everyone
When he was in school, Darine needed tutoring, but his parents couldn’t afford it. Now he wants to make sure no kid has to go without tutoring because of money.
From one on one tutoring to his own organisation
Darine El Houfi is only 21 years old and is still in college, but yet he’s already committed himself to making tutoring available to everyone who needs it.
In high school he noticed he was struggling with certain subjects, but he had no one to help him. Many kids from his class had tutoring, but Darine’s parents couldn’t afford it. Because he didn’t get to have tutoring when he needed it, he wants to make sure no other kids should have disadvantages in that respect because of money. Late 2016 he started one on one tutoring at people’s homes and found out he was good at teaching and showing the kids what you can accomplish with hard work. The number of kids he tutored kept growing and he decided to find a location to start his own tutoring company. Now, his company tutors about 100 students and they keep expanding into more and more cities.
More than just tutoring
Darine’s tutoring encompasses much more than just explaining math. The Dutch school system is organised a certain way that isn’t always clear to immigrant families. When parents don’t fully master the Dutch language, it’s hard for them to help their kids with their homework. But that’s not all that’s more difficult for those families. Parent teacher conferencens, reports and tests, reading to their kids and 9Dutch) literature are all things that are normal in the schoolsystem, but can be confusing and hard for immigrant parents which leads to a worse school performance of the students.
Darine makes sure these kids do well at school. By tutoring, but also by accompanying the parents to parent teacher nights and by explaining to them what’s expected of the kids and of them as a family. This means better school results for the kids which helps their confidence grow and improves their discipline. They are motivated by the example Darine has set for them; a young man who was dealt the same hand in life and worked his way up to being a succesful student ánd tutor. it’s incredibly important these kids get a decent rolemodel, but it may be even more important that this role model is someone they can relate to and identify with. It shows them that all it takes is hard work and making the right choices.
Closing the gap
Darine teaches his students that it’s okay to fail, as long as you’ve tried your best and move forward afterwards.
"I failed my exams and I’m not ashamed of that. Because if I hadn’t failed, i wouldn’t have had such a grasp on the subject matter I need to be able to teach the kids. So I try to show the kids that there’s nothing wrong with failing as long as you move forward and don’t stop trying. So we’re really more than just tutoring; it’s inspiring people, motivating them. Discipline is important to us as well: when they have a test on friday, they can’t start studying on thursday. We made weekly planners so we can check if they started learning for that test in time or not. And nowadays you can find everything online. That’s what we tell parents as well; it’s not that hard anymore to check up on your kid because you can see whether or not they have forgotten their homework or ditched school."
Parents are happy that not just their kids, but that they are guided as well. Darine gives them advice on what they can do for their child’s education; go over sums with them, read to them etc. If they want someone to go to parent teacher conferences with them, that’s possible as well.
After the summer, Darine is going to expand his tutoring business even further. He wil talk to mosques about the role of parents in the education of their children, what is possible with regards to that and how they can achieve this. This way he is working to close the gap that exists between the level of education of immigrant and non-immigrant families in the Netherlands.
Start tutoring
If you've finished high school or college with good grades, you too can start a tutoring service. If you want to do good like Darine, ask only what you really need in order to help more kids from different backgrounds get a decent education.