twenty twenty

I wish that I had the communication ability then that I have now. When I first started, I thought that it was very hard to figure out what people "were trying to say." I wish that I knew that effective questioning begins with who, what, where, when, how. I have found that these interogative beginings of questioning puts the responsibility of answering the question on the student. I wisht that I knew how to re-ask a question a student is asking me. For example, I have had students ask me, "what do you think of this?" My respons(now), is, "I don't know, what do you think about this?" I am suprised to find that most people aren't looking for an opinion; rather, they are looking for validation or invalidation of what they are intrinsicly thinking. Asking the student what they have asked mi is importante because it takes me out of an akward situation and simultaniously creates a non-directive heuristic in tutoring.

Also, I wish that I had the reading comprehension that I do now. Working in the writing center for a year has helped me to see what people are trying to say despite bad grammar. This increased reading comprehension has come from reading many essays that force me to ask myself, "Huh?" That in conjunction with effective questioning has produced better tutoring than before.

Some days, I feel like I know everything there is to know about tutoring, and other days I feel like it is my first day. I suppose it is unrealistic to hope that every session is a blockbuster success, but I am certainly striving for that.

Knowing that not every session is going to be a success is something that I wish I knew when I first started because there were markedly more unsuccesful sessions in the beggining than there are now. I have now been awarded my master tutor certification.

I don't feel like a master tutor. When I think of master, I think of mastery of a skill, and I do not think that I have mastered tutoring by any means. After reading all the essays out of Cross-Talk, I feel like I am a little fish swimming in a big pond. There are so many people that have had so much more experience than me, but I suppose that everyone can't be at the same level. I just wish that my title we're more fitting to how I feel as a tutor.

If I were to go back in time and tell my beggining tutor self on thing it would be, "There is a ton of information that you don't know, and be aware that you don't know it all." The only mastery that I feel is that of knowing that I don't know.