everything can be "mocking" if you let it be
Is “defensive minimalism” passive aggressive? Yes. Does it run the risk of being counterproductive? Well, to answer that I’m going to have to give a horrible, but necessary, waffle answer: it depends on the student. Like any of the many tricks tutors can use in the tutoring session, each one has its limits and carries with it a potential of backfiring. When using defensive minimalism, or any other tutoring technique, the tutor has to be aware of the student’s reactions to such stimuli and be able to change approaches if needed.
Now I will go off on a tangent: a communications professor told me years ago that, “offense is not given but only taken.” Seems true. By this standard, everything the tutor does can be considered “mocking” towards the student.
The opposite of defensive minimalism is doing everything for the student. While many students may seem like they want the tutor to do just this, others may have put a lot of time and effort into their papers, and are adamant about the subject they are researching. So, to do everything for these types of people might come across as mockingly saying, “here you go, little freshman, I fixed that little itty-bitty rough draft of yours for you so that now you won’t fail.”
This doesn’t mean that you can never do some of the students work for him/her. In some tutoring sessions doing this creates momentum for the rest of the session. However, if you see that the student is trying to work with you, and that you are cutting off all him/her every time they say, “I think I…,” or, “Maybe we should…,” then you should stop doing this. It depends.
The same standard can be set for the use of defensive minimalism. Sometimes the student needs you to just back off and let them work. Other times this may be a disaster. Picture this: you have been tutoring a student for 20 minutes and they have not said anything. You can see that he/she is trying to come up with something meaningful to say or write, but nothing is happening. To make things worse, you answer every question, far away from the table, as, “I don’t know. What do YOU think?” Clearly they are struggling and have come in for help, but instead all they are getting is a tutor stuck with using the strict application of an educational theory. Not knowing this, the student would most definitely interpret this as mocking. Other students may just blow it off. It depends.
Just as with the example of doing all the student’s work, overdoing defensive minimalism will hamper productivity. If you find that the student is trying to make you do everything for them, then back off a little and let them sweat for awhile. If they are sitting across the table, about to cry because they just can’t find the one true word for that problematic sentence, make a suggestion. It depends.
So, to give my waffle answer to the question, I guess it depends. What do YOU think?
Now I will go off on a tangent: a communications professor told me years ago that, “offense is not given but only taken.” Seems true. By this standard, everything the tutor does can be considered “mocking” towards the student.
The opposite of defensive minimalism is doing everything for the student. While many students may seem like they want the tutor to do just this, others may have put a lot of time and effort into their papers, and are adamant about the subject they are researching. So, to do everything for these types of people might come across as mockingly saying, “here you go, little freshman, I fixed that little itty-bitty rough draft of yours for you so that now you won’t fail.”
This doesn’t mean that you can never do some of the students work for him/her. In some tutoring sessions doing this creates momentum for the rest of the session. However, if you see that the student is trying to work with you, and that you are cutting off all him/her every time they say, “I think I…,” or, “Maybe we should…,” then you should stop doing this. It depends.
The same standard can be set for the use of defensive minimalism. Sometimes the student needs you to just back off and let them work. Other times this may be a disaster. Picture this: you have been tutoring a student for 20 minutes and they have not said anything. You can see that he/she is trying to come up with something meaningful to say or write, but nothing is happening. To make things worse, you answer every question, far away from the table, as, “I don’t know. What do YOU think?” Clearly they are struggling and have come in for help, but instead all they are getting is a tutor stuck with using the strict application of an educational theory. Not knowing this, the student would most definitely interpret this as mocking. Other students may just blow it off. It depends.
Just as with the example of doing all the student’s work, overdoing defensive minimalism will hamper productivity. If you find that the student is trying to make you do everything for them, then back off a little and let them sweat for awhile. If they are sitting across the table, about to cry because they just can’t find the one true word for that problematic sentence, make a suggestion. It depends.
So, to give my waffle answer to the question, I guess it depends. What do YOU think?
posted by Anonymous at 9:04 AM
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