Apathy, when the feeling's gone and you can't go on...
Sorry, Abba fans. It just popped into my head.
When I think about the concourses of university students trying to write papers, it's one of the things I can most identify with. How many of us are stuck on Sunday night, knowing full well we had three weeks to write a paper but that tv show was just too tempting (Katie can relate with me) and we delayed that stupid thing so long that it's now bitten our behinds? Yes, this little thing that I am so guilty of as much as apathy is called procrastination. And when the procrastination gets longer, the apathy increases and vice versa. I am famous for waiting until the very last second before a paper is due. You know that phrase "I work best under pressure"?
So to tie this in with what I've been learning as a tutor, there's always a sense of urgency that I see with students writing papers. They want it done and they want it done now. It's how we, as the tutors, take the time to sit with them and make sure that they made this job of writing a paper a little bit better than what they originally slopped together. We may be just working on a paper with them on the outside, but they are the ones who are letting time be on their side for a change and letting their words talk back to them. If we help students take the time to decrease their procrastination, then the apathy goes down with the student's ability to grasp their writing. Sometimes it takes two people to make time slow down a little.
When I think about the concourses of university students trying to write papers, it's one of the things I can most identify with. How many of us are stuck on Sunday night, knowing full well we had three weeks to write a paper but that tv show was just too tempting (Katie can relate with me) and we delayed that stupid thing so long that it's now bitten our behinds? Yes, this little thing that I am so guilty of as much as apathy is called procrastination. And when the procrastination gets longer, the apathy increases and vice versa. I am famous for waiting until the very last second before a paper is due. You know that phrase "I work best under pressure"?
So to tie this in with what I've been learning as a tutor, there's always a sense of urgency that I see with students writing papers. They want it done and they want it done now. It's how we, as the tutors, take the time to sit with them and make sure that they made this job of writing a paper a little bit better than what they originally slopped together. We may be just working on a paper with them on the outside, but they are the ones who are letting time be on their side for a change and letting their words talk back to them. If we help students take the time to decrease their procrastination, then the apathy goes down with the student's ability to grasp their writing. Sometimes it takes two people to make time slow down a little.
posted by Anonymous at 6:34 PM
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