Experience

Unfortunately, I have had a terrible illness all week and wasn't able to be in the writing center as much as I would have liked to. That being said, I feel more comfortable about the logistics of tutoring which is one area I was concerned about. I was able to successfully clock in and out. I now know how (and when) to log students out of the system. I had the opportunity to team tutor with Andy and I had a great experience. My time management fears are less than what they were because I don't think I would have taken any longer (or been any faster) than Andy was and I know she knows what she is doing. Therefore, I feel better about time limits with students. I did realize that I need to work on my grammar vocabulary. I know I can help a student without being able to identify sentence pieces by name but it is important to be professional so I will be studying my sentence structure vocabulary over the next couple of weeks. I am grateful that we are doing the team tutoring first because I would really hate it if I miss-guided a student because I wasn't ready to tutor. Andy gave me fantastic feedback and I look forward to my next session!

The Plunge

I probably haven’t had (okay, I KNOW I haven’t had) nearly as many tutoring experiences as everyone else this week. I can only describe it like the way I tend to enter a pool or a cold lake - one tiny step at a time, slowly acclimating myself to the temperature of the water. I have tired of myself at times and jumped right in, trusting that in a few freezing cold minutes I would be use to the water. Most of the time though, I don’t. I wonder if this is because I’m anxious about being cold. I do not like being cold! Although I know that I would be better off just getting it over with, yet I don’t. I have grown braver over these last few years of my life, becoming more secure and what not, and jumped in (even with excitement!) to situations I never would have thought myself confident enough to do before. Having gotten my feet wet this week, I think I just need to take a deep breath, smile, and jump in! I see everyone else doing the same and coming back up just fine.

So, why don’t I? It just hasn’t been my style in the past; but I’d like to change that. Everybody else has been great examples to me, some even coaxing me to take the plunge with them. To you I say thanks! Sometimes all I need is permission. To know it’s ok. After mulling over my experiences this week, I’ve psyched myself up. As I mentioned before in my previous post, I am excited and nervous about tutoring. This week I probably let my nervousness get the better of me. I just had to test the waters out to make sure I could do this. And you know what? I think I can! And it will be fun, too! It helps to have encouraging and fun peers and mentors. You are all in the water calling me in to join you (whether you’ve realized it or not). Also I think, “Who wants to go swimming alone?” I'm sorry that it’s taken me a little bit to realize that you are all in there, too. Why? I’m not entirely sure, but I think I just had to stop thinking about myself so much in order to look around and see you all there with welcoming smiles.

Reading about your experiences has helped me to connect with you and realize that I’m not the only one in there. I know I’ve been told I'm not alone, but it took me till now to have the light bulb turn on. This next week I hope to improve by working on my weak points. There was so much that we talked about in class that turned out to be right as to what we would encounter. I hope I can remember all this good instruction and advice. Thanks for those who’ve helped me this week (even by just talking to me) and I hope I can return the favor. After all, we’re all in this together, so let’s make this the best pool party ever!

"Don't Tell Me. We're About to Go Over a Huge Waterfall."

"Yep."
"Sharp rocks at the bottom?"
"Most likely."
"Bring it on. BOOYAAH!! WHOOO-hoo-HOO-HO!"
(The Emperors New Groove).

I just had to start off with that quote because that's just about exactly how I felt with my first few tutoring sessions. The reason being was because I was scared to death of what was awaiting me at the 'bottom of the waterfall', but I wasn't about to let it stop me, nor did I exactly have a choice. In the end, although my first tutoring was terrifying, it was still a lot of fun. I believe I have learned more from the students than they have from me.

I worry that I am overly critical of myself when it comes to tutoring sessions. I worry that my expressions are too focused and not eased enough to make the student feel more relaxed, I worry that everything I'm telling a writer is not getting through to them, and I worry that I'll never match up to the other tutors. I've also learned a lot from the other tutors. I love working with them in sessions because it helps me gain experience and figure out how to phrase things better. I've especially learned a lot on how to phrase things to writers that do not have English as their native language.

My first tutoring session was actually with an ESL student. I was terrified. I was so afraid that my explanations to the students questions on grammar and word phrases were not coming across in a manner that the student could understand. I was so grateful to have other tutors in the room that I could turn to for help. Tutoring in ESL was a lot harder than I expected. In a later ESL tutoring session, I was relieved to have a fellow tutor sit in on a session with me and help explain things to the student. I picked up a lot of different ways I can phrase questions to the student to help them figure out the answer on their own. That made me happy and when I have in turn applied these little tricks I have been met with success.

Something else that I was not prepared for was with APA formatting. I had never had to do it before in any of my classes, so it was completely new to me. It was an intense learning experience where I was sure I was headed for those sharp rocks. But, with a little help, I was able to figure out what to do and how to explain it, the student did as well, and now I know how to do APA formatting.

I felt like I have jumped around all week to a lot of different sessions, in which I learned something new every time. I also worked as a lab aide a lot of the time, which I found enjoyable. i learned a lot about the students that would come in from being a lab aide as well, I didn't expect that. I also didn't expect how much I would have to refer to so many different books to help a writer clarify a meaning or get a point across. I was happy to have something turn to along with the fellow tutors. I feel like I was saved by them so much, but I suppose it's also a learning experience all the way around, so, "bring it on."

Being

Words, Sentences, Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives, Adverbs, constantly swarming the condescending tone of my own remarks of understanding this type of tutoring, while all the time compiling themselves into a cluttered mess of rules that consumes my mind and what next? After the feast of my brain do I, as my own being, claim to know the rules. The repertoire of a mind once lost to grammar lingers in the assumptions of what has become the self, the being that subsumes the knowledge around and flourishes it. Or is it the being that has starved its own anticipation for the knowledge that once was?

While the grand exploration of the mind or what was and has become, may cease to exist. The contemplation of what was must begin. Silently creeping, and lurking in the back of my conscious lies the idea of what was: Grammar Rules. Condensed over the years by philosophical knowledge and buried in the back of the skull, with only one etching: Comma Happy, solemn remembrances of what once were the teachings of my English mentor. Justification for a life cultivated of other knowledge, while remembering the laws that govern existence.
How then do I resurrect the memories of my grammar classes to not miss the mark and consume the session with useless knowledge, that neither the tutee nor I should even embark to explore.
The enlightenment that I felt knowing that I was not alone on this journey warmed my soul. Thankfully, my being was far from alone on the battlefield for understanding. With a helping hand, Adrian, regained the session. Without having covered a lot of grammar rules in a yvery long time, the books were opened and all three people dove into them looking for an explanation.
But just as there are explanations for our own assumptions about the English language, there is an ideology that follows the words and clauses and subjects and verbs and grammatical errors that boggle a person’s existence, so there must be rules to follow. The rocks of ideals of what becomes the language are nothing more than a fear to embark on this journey with another person. What may come of my existence, I know not. But the assumption of my knowledge of our language shall be a voyage I will take, but never truly conquer.

You Can't Scare Me!

So, before I began tutoring, all I could think about was how bad I was going to be at it...Thankfully, I had this class to give me a few pointers on how a session should go. Setting up a 'map' of where you want to be at the end of the session has probably helped me the most so far. A lot of the students want their grammar checked but they don't realize that the grammar won't matter if the idea is unclear. Surprisingly, most of the student's I met with didn't have super bad grammar problems. More often than not, the student's conclusion should have been their introduction(just like we were told in class!). It was scary when I had to work with some ESL students. The thought going through my head was "How much am I going to screw up this person's English?" Luckily, most of them understood what I was trying to tell them(or said they did) and left with smiles. That's the thing I like the best so far. The satisfaction I've seen on a few of the students' faces has been absolutely rewarding! I think that I'm going to make it as a tutor :)

Back in the Saddle

It has certainly been an awesome few days. I think one of the things that I loved the most was how active all of the tutors were to get students in the writing center. We were chomping at the bit, hungry for work, and to help where we could. My first few tutoring sessions were great. The students showed up with their paper. After a little banter as we were going to our seats, and filling out the appropriate paperwork, there was a real connection made, and the students were very open and honest. One of the students that I worked with had just rerturned from serving a full-time LDS mission in Washington State, and as I told him that I served in Rome, his face lit up, and he asked if I knew a man by the name of Alessandro Dini Ciacci, who is incidentally a very good friend of mine from Caserta in Southern Italy. Having this connection really helped with the bridge of trust, and we were able to make some great progress, because he saw me for what I am, a peer who could be trusted to help. So it was great. Kudos to Laikwan for being the Clark Kent of the writing center. Seriously, we should make him a medal. I have a lot to learn from all of you this year, and I am looking forward to it!!!

It was a doozy

Holy moly (Faust Custoly),
Mad tutoring this week, already (yeah, this week...meaning yesterday, Tuesday, the first day of school this week). I finally experienced something that it seems like all of my colleagues have already experienced multiple times: vast stretches of uninterrupted tutoring sessions. It's just never happened to me before. But yesterday I jumped back and forth from the Writing Center to the DELC from 9:00-1:00, without stop. ESL, ENGL 1010, ENGL 2010, ENGL 900 and 955, Social Work, Social Problems, and even an OWL, all in addition to playing Lab Aide, answering visitors' questions, dealing with non-tutees who wanted to come in and print stuff for free, finding time to talk to Claire, checking the DELC and Writing Center inboxes continually, and inserting jokes and laughs with the coworkers in order to keep things fun and pleasant.

Yes, I most certainly felt nervous--or thought about the idea of nervousness at first--but somehow I just squashed it. I ignored it and I didn't have time for it. Neither did my tutees have time for me to be that way. I also quickly realized that all of my colleagues were just as nervous, if not far more (especially since most of them that day were brand new). In one particular session, I even had a tutee who was so visibly squeamish and afraid that I said to myself, "Man, what are you complaining about, Laikwan? Obviously everybody in this room is suffering more than you right now."

What was also funny was that I had about three different tutors observe my tutoring that day. Couldn't have dreamt of a more high-pressure day to perform. By 11:00 or 12:00, however, I was just cruising. Can't explain it. Just didn't have time to be thinking about myself so much. And as soon as that happened, I started to feel good. As soon as it stopped being about me, there was clarity of mind for me and engagement and excitement on the tutee's part.

Everything suddenly died at 1:00. I asked permission to go get myself my first meal of the day. After stuffing my face with a Philly Cheese Steak, everything was still dead. I did an OWL, commiserated with Claire and my colleagues, and called it a day two and a half hours later. We were excited, we were tired, and judging from my conversations with everybody, just about every one of us had encountered the very fears we had each anticipated, and yet we all were exhilirated and hopeful by the end of the day. Nay, the hope and exhiliration had come much earlier in that day for all of us, right in the midst of our toil and anxiety. It's kind of like that quote from Martha Graham or Isadora Duncan (one I'm about to butcher): observing people who went into a certain gym in New York, she noted how they would enter either innocently--unaware of the grind they were about to be put through--or with dread--anticipating their imminent suffering. Once inside, they would grimace, toil, suffer, and endure, yet always afterwards come out "looking purified."

Here We Go!

So. You should all have gotten some real, live tutoring experience this week. How did it go? Did your experience line up with your expectations? With your anxieties?