I have been a tutor, both privately and for another tutoring company, for 8 years and Lindamood Bell has completely taken away my love for the field. LB has proven techniques for teaching a very specific cognitive impairment (visualization). Unfortunately, they take in all kinds of students that do NOT benefit from this curriculum. My center especially has been low on students and therefore low on funds, so any student that comes in for an evaluative test gets the hard sell for our program. This directly harms both the students and the "clinicians" (tutors). We had many students who were frustrated by our program and felt it was monotonous, because they weren't personally experiencing the problems that our curriculum is set up to address. We aren't allowed to stray from curriculum (and aren't trained to anyhow), so teaching certain students who have no problem visualizing would feel like beating a dead horse. And, worse, we had many students who were brought into LB because they had behavioral issues, which continually boggled my mind because that is not what the center is advertised to take on, nor is it what the clinicians (none of whom have psychology or childcare experience) are trained by LB to do. Clinicians are therefore underprepared and overwhelmed by problem students who have - on many separate occasions at my center - become verbally abusive, disruptive, and clearly emotionally upset in-session. It is stressful as the clinician and downright harmful for these students and their poor families, who are told by consultants that LB is the right path for them even when we are making no progress. Furthermore, while clinicians are dealing with these very intense behavioral issues, they are grossly underpaid, receiving about 12% of what we charge the parents, per hour. Since I have been in the field of childcare and tutoring for many years, I know what it pays in my area, especially for taking on special-needs students, and I know the rate LB offers to clinicians is absurdly low. Even when I was officially promoted to "full-time," when I was trained as a scorer/tester, trained for our math program, and trained for academy (four rounds of training!) I never received a pay-increase or bonus to reflect my new titles/responsibilities. When I outright requested a raise following my last round of training, I was told that it would be given upon an employee review. I requested an employee review, since they are supposed to be given within three months of employment (which had long-passed), and my manager said she would get back to me. When she never did, I emailed her (since she is remote) and she never replied to the email. It is so frustrating to watch the visualization program, an admittedly very beneficial and well-studied form of teaching, be so misused due to the mismanagement, the money-hungry attitude, and the lack of behavioral training. Clinicians are over-worked, under-supported by management, and completely underpaid.
