Put up the blame
Honestly, it takes a lot for me to get frustrated nowadays while in a tutoring session. Or at least, it takes a lot more than it would have taken several years ago. Most of my sessions are pretty straight forward though. I hardly seem to have any that on a whole are entirely frustrating--granted, there are those times when I have taken a session fifteen minutes before I have to leave for class or to go to my other job, only to find that the writing is twice as long as I suspected, but mainly it seems that those frustrating sessions are, for the most part, my fault.
I hate blaming fault on someone, but if it is going to be on anyone then it may as well be me. When I have quite a bit on my plate already what with full time classes and two (practically three) jobs, the length of fuse that it takes to set me off starts to get shorter. Thankfully, nothing serious has come out of it and nothing will (unless I have a very INCREDIBLY bad day, in which case I would go hide in a bathroom somewhere because it would most likely stem from getting my wisdom teeth ripped out), but it makes it seem that when those frustrating sessions come by, they end up frustrating because of me.
Sometimes I seriously think I have a speech impediment or something. I have trouble saying what I want to say. Writing it out I can do fine, sure, but that would take too long when trying to explain a grammar concept or ask a question about the writing. In which case I struggle to verbally express the ideas I want to get across to the tutee--which seems to rarely get out correctly the first time through. My tutoring sessions end up longer than most because I have to take the time to undo and reaffirm what I have said, and that only adds to the frustration for both me and the tutee when he or she cannot get what I am trying to explain.
I have gotten much better at it though--my tutees eventually understand what I try to explain to them (a lot faster than last year, probably thanks to this class), and sometimes it seems that taking the time to clarify only helps them further understand. In any case, that part of the tutoring session is less frustrating and stressful than last year.
Hmm, so what was I getting at...
I cannot quite think of a specific frustrating tutoring session except for perhaps the one I had a few weeks ago with a student from the Davis Campus. The main part that was frustrating was because he was so focused on only doing proofreading that he practically refused to listen to any other suggestions or questions I had concerning his method of organization or the assignment as a whole. Even though there were some obviously blaring organizational problems--the tutee had tried to use a format the professor had recommended in the compare and contrast paper, but it seemed like he had taken it too literally and many of the ideas were scattered and randomly placed.
But all he came for was to look at grammar. That was all. And that made the session extremely frustrating. I know that we as tutors are not supposed to "write the paper for them," but in this case the organization was so randomly scattered that I had to wonder what it was the professor said about it.
Oh well, at least he got the general idea. I think.
I hate blaming fault on someone, but if it is going to be on anyone then it may as well be me. When I have quite a bit on my plate already what with full time classes and two (practically three) jobs, the length of fuse that it takes to set me off starts to get shorter. Thankfully, nothing serious has come out of it and nothing will (unless I have a very INCREDIBLY bad day, in which case I would go hide in a bathroom somewhere because it would most likely stem from getting my wisdom teeth ripped out), but it makes it seem that when those frustrating sessions come by, they end up frustrating because of me.
Sometimes I seriously think I have a speech impediment or something. I have trouble saying what I want to say. Writing it out I can do fine, sure, but that would take too long when trying to explain a grammar concept or ask a question about the writing. In which case I struggle to verbally express the ideas I want to get across to the tutee--which seems to rarely get out correctly the first time through. My tutoring sessions end up longer than most because I have to take the time to undo and reaffirm what I have said, and that only adds to the frustration for both me and the tutee when he or she cannot get what I am trying to explain.
I have gotten much better at it though--my tutees eventually understand what I try to explain to them (a lot faster than last year, probably thanks to this class), and sometimes it seems that taking the time to clarify only helps them further understand. In any case, that part of the tutoring session is less frustrating and stressful than last year.
Hmm, so what was I getting at...
I cannot quite think of a specific frustrating tutoring session except for perhaps the one I had a few weeks ago with a student from the Davis Campus. The main part that was frustrating was because he was so focused on only doing proofreading that he practically refused to listen to any other suggestions or questions I had concerning his method of organization or the assignment as a whole. Even though there were some obviously blaring organizational problems--the tutee had tried to use a format the professor had recommended in the compare and contrast paper, but it seemed like he had taken it too literally and many of the ideas were scattered and randomly placed.
But all he came for was to look at grammar. That was all. And that made the session extremely frustrating. I know that we as tutors are not supposed to "write the paper for them," but in this case the organization was so randomly scattered that I had to wonder what it was the professor said about it.
Oh well, at least he got the general idea. I think.
posted by Keya at 11:39 PM
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