Pros
I did work for Lindamood-Bell for two consecutive summers, so there were definitely aspects to my job that I loved and will miss now that I am moving on. For the right kind of person in the right circumstances, tutoring at LMB can be a great fit. You are given amazing opportunities for professional development in teaching and you get exposure to students with all kinds of learning/developmental differences. (Most) of my coworkers were fun to talk to, supportive, and receptive to concerns. You will most likely get very attached to the kids and become invested in seeing them advance through the programs.
Cons
As it stands now, Lindamood-Bell expects clinicians to essentially perform the same functions as a special education teacher (especially if they work with Academy students) for not much more than minimum wage. Clinicians making $15-$18 an hour, depending on their location, are expected to take detailed instruction notes and entertain children while making sure they get through an absurd number of activities in very short windows of time. You have to keep them on task and positively affirm them, even if their behavior is insulting and rude. Management will tell you that you can always come to them if you are having problems with a particular student, but they will waste no time removing that student from your schedule, most likely cutting your hours in the process. Centers seem to be encouraged to take on as many students as they can so corporate management can fund their planned global expansion (I'm not kidding. There are now centers in Singapore and Australia, with more promised). This, of course, results in the company accepting students with severe behavioral issues that their programs cannot fix, at least without behavioral intervention first. I got the impression multiple times during training that some in the company believe diagnoses like dyslexia and autism were not due to any cognitive or neurological differences, but because of a weakness in "concept imagery" or "symbol imagery," their branded terminology. I saw this firsthand in my center this past summer. A student with an autism diagnosis struggled to process basic questions she was asked in session. Center management kept attributing this to a weakness in her "concept imagery" instead of working within the parameters of her diagnosis, which made it difficult for her to concentrate and to understand what she was being asked.
