How to find and vet the best homeschool teachers

The complete guide to finding, vetting, recruiting, training and retaining the best homeschool teachers, tutors, and caregivers

Quick summary: While parents can make exceptional teachers (and arguably the best ones for homeschooling), having a wide variety of role models can enrich a child’s education - and offer mentorship to children and support to families.

In the information age with a rapidly evolving workforce, there’s less of a need for teachers to be purveyors of information and more of a need for teachers to be compassionate guides with strong communication skills, ideally suited to helping raise autodidacts and global citizens in our rapidly changing world - a world where limitless (often conflicting, frequently misleading, sometimes extraordinary) information is available at tip of our fingers.

To find a great teacher to enhance your child’s learning, we recommend looking at child life specialists (CCLS), college students, actors, museum educators, and afterschool teachers. Indeed, LinkedIn and local Facebook groups can be great places to find inspiring educators.

This post is more technical than usual. If you’re looking for incredibly detailed and specific information on how to find the ideal teacher for your child (or your microschool or learning platform), at a price you can afford, you’ll find it here.

In this post we’ll cover

📝 Reasons to hire a homeschool teacher (or find one for free)

🐒 How the role teachers fill is evolving (and why that’s relevant to finding a good one)

🎨 Essential qualities to look for in a homeschool teacher

🎭 The 6 best teacher archetypes, where to find them and how to empower them to succeed

🌎 The four best places to find homeschool teachers + sample job posts

🔎 How to vet prospective teachers

🏃🏽‍♀️ Pro-tip: Act Fast

🪢 How to retain teachers

💰 How much to pay teachers (in-person and remote) and where to find free tutoring.

🗣 How to communicate effectively with teachers

📚 Training resources for teachers and caregivers

At Modulo, we have a special knack for finding great teachers, even in the most highly specialized subjects. We’ve helped recruit, vet, and train hundreds of homeschool teachers, both online and in-person. Whether you’re looking for a physics tutor, Vietnamese teacher, or caregiver who can support the all-in-one curriculum you’ve chosen, in this guide, we share the best tips for finding the best teachers for the job. 

Who this post is for

This post will support parents looking to enrich their child’s education with diverse role models. It will also help anyone hiring teachers for innovative learning models: education startup founders, afterschool and summer camp coordinators, hybrid school and micro-school leaders, as well as hiring teams at online or in-person marketplaces for tutors and classes.  

Reasons to hire a homeschool teacher

We spend an entire post laying out why parents have significant competitive advantages over teachers when it comes to their child’s education. So it may be odd that we’re now devoting an entire post to finding the best homeschool teachers.

Families often start out feeling disempowered when it comes to guiding their child’s education. They think “teachers” have some secret sauce, and that they themselves lack the qualifications (or ability to communicate effectively with their child around learning). In fact, parents who are deeply invested in their child’s education can make wonderful teachers (especially with all the wonderful tools and resources that have been developed specifically to support them in educating their kids). Even when it comes to advanced subjects, parents don’t have to be subject experts. They can learn with their child, drawing on the nearly infinite variety of tools that have emerged in the last two decades to support self-directed learning.

While there isn’t an urgent need to hire a homeschool teacher in order to provide an incredibly rich, accelerated, and well-rounded education to your kids, there are some ways that outside educators can help enrich your child’s education. And if you’re concerned about the cost, there are many ways to find a teacher for free, or low cost.

Here are some reasons why families might choose to bring in an outside educator

1. Expand horizons

It is vital to surround your child with a wide variety of mentors and role models, exposing them to different influences and points of view - widening the circle of people who love and care about them. A parent’s involvement is crucial to their child’s learning, but bringing other people into the folds only adds to that experience. It’s possible to find these people in your homeschool community, or by bringing in an outside educator.

2. Subject experts for foreign languages - or topics you can’t learn on YouTube

We believe in an approach to teaching that involves learning with kids using a mastery-based approach, encouraging them to develop their own tools to problem-solve, push past frustration, follow their curiosity and deepen their knowledge, not strategically relaying information and spoon-feeding them tricks to help memorize facts and formulas.

The best learning is driven by a hunger to solve a problem, and when guided well and with patience and time, a good environment for learning, and a parent’s courage to allow children to experience natural consequences, children are able to tap into extraordinary reservoirs of grit and resilience to learn anything they set their minds to. We see this kind of learning when they learn to walk and talk.

Some parents are fortunate to witness this kind of learning when they bring their young child to a foreign country for a year and see them develop total fluency in a second language. We rarely, however, really give kids the total trust and faith that they’re capable of this kind of learning.

We don’t think parents need to know a subject like “advanced physics” to help their kids learn it.  Rather, it’s quite powerful to learn with your child, helping them develop skills to teach themselves. See our post, “Giving kids the time and space they need to teach themselves,” for more strategies on how to encourage self-directed learning in kids.

Giving kids the time and space they need to teach themselves

However, it can be helpful to bring an expert in for more technical subjects that require mentorship, or if it’s a topic that might not be safe to learn at home (like gymnastics). One rule of thumb is that if it’s a subject you can’t learn by watching youtube (like fencing or open-heart surgery), you probably shouldn’t try to teach it. You might also want to ask what you’d need to learn a certain subject (would you enroll in a class, watch a blog, hire a tutor?)

Immersion is the best way to learn a foreign language, and it’s easier to become fluent the younger a child is. For that reason, some families form bilingual playgroups with a native speaker to lead them or hire a bilingual caregiver. Another great option for an older child is to set them up with an internship or apprenticeship in an area of interest.

Keep in mind that a great subject expert might not necessarily make a great teacher, or a great for your individual child. Later in this post, we’ll give tips on how to vet and train potential teachers.

3. Teachers for group classes

Group classes (even with two kids) are much trickier to teach than 1-1 tutoring. You can’t just learn with your child, you also have to be able to facilitate a group of children. This is one of the things talented, certified and highly experienced teachers are highly adept at.

A group class can be an excellent pretext to get kids together for an educational, social and/or childcare experience. For example, homeschool parents might band together and hire a chemistry teacher to run labs with a small group of teens. Often, homeschoolers have intergenerational classes where parents, grandparents, and kids learn together. 

4. Role models for unique careers

A great teacher can change a child’s life, inspiring them to delve deep into a specific subject area or cultivate a lifelong love of learning.  If a child wants to be a marine biologist, and both parents are tax attorneys, it can be helpful for them to have a role model in their field of interest. 

Children (and adults) learn a lot through modeling, so surrounding them with a wide variety of inspiring mentors is important. Studies on social mobility, for example, show a woman is more likely to become an entrepreneur if there’s a female entrepreneur living in her neighborhood, and proportionately more if she’s on the same street.

How the role of a teacher is changing

The role of the teacher has changed quite a bit since access to the internet, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and the rapid growth in new technologies changed everything about the workforce - and how we find and process information. Khan Academy trailblazed a path where it’s possible for any person (with an electronic device and internet connection) to get a “world-class education in any subject.”

It’s become more critical than ever that kids have the resilience, self-efficacy, and creativity to adapt to a complex and changing world. 

The workforce is different

A child may change careers many times in their lifetime, so having strong elasticity and the ability to learn new skills are more critical than the skills themselves. Careers in technology demand creative, entrepreneurial capacities. The world is changing at lightning speed - the jobs we prepare children for today will likely be gone by the time they enter the workforce. So knowing how to learn and pick up new skills has become infinitely more important than the skills themselves.

Guidance v. Data Storage

While we once needed teachers to be like encyclopedias (storing and communicating vasts amount of information), we now need teachers who are more like great librarians (guiding children through a curated database of information). Teachers no longer need to serve as data storage centers, relaying information to students, but can be guides - to help students find and process all the information at their fingertips. 

EQ vs. IQ

Whereas before, teachers needed to know a ton of information and relay it strategically (monitoring their ability to retain and retrieve info through clever mnemonic devices), now it’s more important that teachers have high emotional intelligence and can communicate effectively with children to inspire them to problem solve and guide their own learning.  We need teachers who can foster grit and a growth mindset through gentle encouragement and deft reinforcement of process, not character and grades. We need teachers who can model excitement for learning and sound learning strategies.  

Modular Learning v Traditional Classrooms

Since modular learning is very different from learning in a classroom setting, we’ve found that some of the crucial teaching aptitudes for a classroom setting don’t necessarily translate well to a one-on-one environment or a small group of modular learners.  An enthusiastic undergraduate might even connect better with children than a highly experienced, certified teacher (especially if they’re provided with a curriculum to work with). Homeschoolers tend to connect well with adults and are used to being treated as peers, so they don’t necessarily need (or respond) to traditional behavioral management techniques many classroom teachers are used to applying. 

Essential qualities to look for in a homeschool teacher

Here are the most important qualities we’ve identified for homeschool teachers.

Effective communicators

A good teacher is clear, articulate, patient, kind, and able to engage well with children at your child’s developmental stage. Some teachers relate better to younger children and others to teens. It’s good to know their “sweet spot.” 

Actors and performing artists often make fantastic teachers because they have extensive training and experience communicating with a broad audience. This translates well to listening to and engaging a young learner.

We highly recommend getting the book “How to Talk So Kids Can Learn” for your teacher or caregiver. It’s helped many of the actors, artists, and graduate students we’ve hired translate their performance skills to teaching children. 

Strong desire to learn and grow

Teachers with a genuine passion for learning and growing make the best role models for students. Their excitement and curiosity are infectious. 

A good teacher is insatiably curious about everything. They will ideally be learning about how your child learns as they go - and changing their strategy as your child evolves.   They’re also much easier to work with because they tend to be receptive to feedback and advice. They want to learn!  

High Open-Mindedness and Flexibility

Modular learning is different than traditional school. By choosing modular learning, you’re embracing a radical belief that the traditional education system is flawed and a customized approach will lead to better academic, social, and emotional outcomes.  

In classrooms with standardized tests, everyone learns the same way for the same outcomes. In a mastery-based approach, a good teacher will continuously experiment and iterate on their approach to serve the child better as they evolve.

Be wary of teachers who want to set things in stone at the beginning or have inflexible views about how children learn. They may be tough to work with down the road. 

Rather, find a highly curious, humble teacher who is visibly excited about the innovative path you’ve taken and wants to be a fellow pioneer on the journey. Teachers who love learning often have this quality. 

Childcare experience 

It’s not vital that your teacher has teaching experience, but it is indispensable that your teacher has childcare experience. All parents do! If a grown adult has never spent time with a niece, tutored, watched a younger sibling, or babysat, it’s unlikely they will know how to relate to your child. 

A good teacher loves children and is excited to spend time with them. Be on the lookout for teachers with child-like qualities, as this is generally a good sign they’ll relate well with kids. 

High level of empathy and emotional intelligence (EQ)

One of the concepts widely discussed in the “Developmental interaction approach,” originating from Bank Street College of Education, is “unconditional positive regard” for kids. A good teacher can set boundaries and allow children to experience natural consequences, but this is all in the context that a good teacher knows that children are acting in good faith, not being “bad,” naughty,” or “manipulative.” 

High energy & enthusiasm

Teaching takes a lot of energy. Children will respond well to a teacher who brings a great deal of authentic enthusiasm and natural energy. It takes a lot to match the natural energy of children. Not everyone likes it, but good teachers do.

We usually ask prospective teachers to send us a short video. Within the first few seconds of their interview, it’s generally possible to tell if a potential teacher has high energy. Don’t waste time with the world’s most renowned expert who can’t bring a high energy level to their teaching sessions.

A bit silly

In general, children love humor. Choose the kind of teacher who will throw in a few fart jokes - and get up and do funny dancing with your kid in the middle of a tutoring session. 

Extremely well-organized

High executive functioning skills are critical for a flexible teaching style. A good teacher will be able to establish milestones, communicate expectations, remember and build on learning from the last session, draw child's attention to how far they’ve come and communicate progress to parents.

High level of commitment

A good teacher-student relationship helps students cultivate a healthy attachment style. Children and teens can get very attached to their teachers. It can be frustrating when a teacher flakes out frequently or stops tutoring after 1-2 months because they got another job opportunity. It’s also much more work for you to keep finding new people. Try to verify that your tutor can commit for a year before you get started. 

It’s generally a good idea to see if their lifestyle incentivizes them to have a consistent gig. It’s also helpful to see what their work pattern was like at previous jobs. A good teacher should feel a certain level of loyalty to your child and intuitively understand that quitting mid-way can lead to feelings of sadness and betrayal. 

A high degree of trust in children

A great teacher does not blame or shame. They do not use character labels like “lazy” or “smart.” A great teacher has absolute faith in the capacity of children to learn. They have unconditional positive regard for their students and total confidence that children mean well. If children are troubled, they focus on identifying the need behind the stress rather than labeling children as manipulative or bad. 

A great teacher takes responsibility for outcomes 

The great teacher takes responsibility and does not blame parents or kids for poor outcomes. They know beyond a shadow of a doubt that a child is capable of mastering concepts if given enough time and the right approach.  This does not mean that they coddle children - far from it. A great teacher is less likely to help and more likely to encourage children about their own ability to find solutions. 

In an ideal system, the parent, teachers, and students are all taking responsibility and problem-solving together, not blaming others for poor outcomes.

At the same time, the teacher attributes success entirely to the student and their extraordinary potential (not to their teaching style). We can see this in a teacher when they reflect awe for children’s minds and their progress. A great teacher will not talk about what they’ve accomplished with a student, but amazement at the progress they’ve seen in children they’ve worked with - and gratitude for having been a part of their journey. 

In an ideal system, the parents, teachers, and students are all attributing success to others and showing gratitude at all times.

Online expertise

If teaching is happening online, a fast internet connection and familiarity with best practices for online teaching are essential to a quality learning experience. Poor internet, bad angles, and a noisy environment all cause microaggressions that negatively impact learning. Even the best teacher might not be adept at teaching in an online environment. 

Provided they have access to a strong internet connection and a well-lit environment, and if they’re motivated and passionate about teaching, they can easily adopt a few simple tips to help improve the quality of the online teaching environment. Once we started sending our “best practices for online teaching” to new educators, we saw a dramatic improvement in teaching quality. We also give each family tips about how to set up their online learning environment with the right tools and technology to support learning and well-being. We’ve found a few small considerations in how the environment is set up make a huge difference in the quality of the child’s online learning experience.  We’ve made these resources free to the public, so feel free to take advantage of them and share our best practices with your teachers and caregivers.

Pro-tip

Don’t expect your teacher to necessarily communicate well with adults. While it’s not always the case, some of the most exceptional teachers are great with kids but a little weird and socially awkward with adults.  

The best teacher archetypes and where to find them