Tutoring

Approach

Rhizome Learning is focused on connecting world-class scholars and teachers with diverse constellations of students in collaborative classroom environments. It is sometimes possible, though, to contract with those teachers for one-on-one tutoring sequences with highly specific objectives.

When a Rhizome teacher agrees to tutor a student, it will be because they—and the student, parent, or education consultant—see a specific fit between that teacher’s expertise and that student’s potential. The teacher’s approach will be highly adaptable, but will reflect Rhizome’s core principles: teaching ingenuity in essentials, and leveraging the student’s unique capacities in order to go beyond common standards of excellence.

Logistics

Tutoring fees depend on the instructor and the situation, and generally range from $200-300 per contact hour. Schedules are built on a case-by-case basis, but are not open-ended: an approach is designed in concert with the student and their support network, with a provisional goal and end date for the project. The tutor remains in close contact with the student, their parents, and other advocates throughout the sequence, and remains available afterwards to support the student with advice, recommendations, and consultations.

Current Tutors

Students, parents, or consultants can request any of our established Rhizome teachers (see Current Courses page) to serve as a tutor, by contacting Rhizome’s founder and liaison, Adam Rzepka, at adamrzepka@gmail.com. It is also possible to request that Rhizome use its recruiting networks to identify and vet a tutor.

For the summer and fall of 2023, the following teachers have agreed to consider taking on 1-2 students on an individual basis:

Adam Rzepka holds a B.A. in English and Philosophy from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in English Literature and Language from the University of Chicago. He has taught writing and literature to an exceptional range of students: Buddhist monks in India, inmates in San Quentin State Prison, gifted high-schoolers from around the world, first-in-the-family college freshmen, first-in-class high-school students applying to university, and advanced graduate students on the cusp of professional scholarly careers. He has taught at the University of Chicago, the University of California Berkeley, Stanford University’s Online High School, and in his current position as a professor at Montclair State University.

Adam is the founder and CEO of Rhizome Learning Cooperative, where he teaches groups of students gathered from across the globe, including China, Indonesia, the U.S., Europe, and Africa. He specializes in using close textual analysis to extract and foster students’ originality in thought, argument, and expression—an approach that helps students stand out in a crowded field of highly competent thinkers and writers even as they work through essentials of grammar, style, and argumentation. This method has met with consistent success for more than a decade, benefitting from its deep adaptability. Adam’s students achieve remarkable things, both through their writing and through the ways in which that writing fosters an unmistakable voice in their other pursuits. They have received BA degrees from behind bars, become leading researchers, and applied successfully to every Ivy League university (as well as Stanford, Berkeley, Cambridge, and others).

Adam currently tutors on a highly selective basis, but he has extensive experience working one-on-one with students at levels ranging from middle-school to college. He has a special interest in gifted students with high ambitions seeking a transformative change in their argumentation and expression.