What makes for a good LSAT Teacher?
One of the most interesting parts of my job is to watch candidates audition. I’ve written previously about our audition process:
first stage – phone interview – knocks out about 30-40%,
second stage – online audition – knocks out about 70% of those who make it there
third stage – in-person audition – knocks out about 90% of those who make it there
In case you’re auditioning or just curious, I’ll tell you the top three reasons we reject teaching candidates:
1. Lectures. Folks who have taught for other test prep companies usually lecture instead of teach. This makes sense since many of them have mostly taught in large lecture halls, where Socratic teaching isn’t necessarily practical. But, with our small classes, we need folks who know how to teach through questions and discussion. We have a bunch of reasons why we think lectures are not effective for mastering the LSAT; for one, students don’t have to do a lot of work during a lecture. More on this later . . .
2. Fake questions. Because I often tell candidates that we’re looking for something other than lectures, many make a strong effort in this direction. However, we see a lot of what I’ll call “fake Socratic questioning.” Candidates will ask questions, but they won’t actually listen to the answer or, if they do listen, do anything different with the lesson based on what they have heard.
3. Low energy. It’s not easy to keep a class engaged for 3 hours. Many people don’t know how to keep things lively (how to switch up the format of the class). There’s a whole host of techniques for this, and then there’s some natural pizzaz.
4. The score. Obviously, we think that people need to be able to get the score in order to teach people to get the score. However, many people think that the score is enough — far from it. There are a lot of really smart people who couldn’t teach their way out of a shoe. (And that is officially a new saying, by the way.)
5. The teaching X factor. Undefined and very important.