Reluctance

Reluctant students are a little difficult to deal with and there is not a whole lot you can do. If the student is determined not to learn or participate, there is nothing in the world anyone can do to change it. When this is the case, it is the job of the tutor to do everything in their power to make the session as productive as possible.

Some things that I usually try is being their friend. Getting excited and having enthusiasm about the things you are doing becomes very contagious. I try this method in hopes that it will rub off on them and they will actually process what I'm trying to teach them.

In the event that this does not work, I would recommend trying to give the students suggestions. If the student doesn't like what you have to say, or take the suggestions made, write them down on the brown sheet so that in case the student has a change in heart later, they are able to find the suggestions that you made for them. I don't know how often this helps, but this way the student will have a frame of reference in how to go about revising their paper.

I haven't really had any experiences like this yet. Usually I get pretty engaged students who want to be in the writing center. The only student that was borderline reluctant seemed to take my suggestions but was still convinced that he was an amazing writer. We ended up talking more a long the lines of the ideas of his paper, so the discussion was semi-productive if anything.

I think this topic comes down to one main thing: Learning is the student's job, while it is the Tutor's job to make it as easy to learn as possible. The information must be presented in an appealing fashion and it is the tutee's job to internalize it. Sometimes at the end of the day, the student outright refuses internalize the information handed to them and there is just nothing you can do about it. In these cases, it is advised to end the session early and maybe have them reschedule at a later date.

All in all, as a tutor, do your best to want to be there, and hopefully your enthusiasm will wear off on the tutee so that they will choose to be engaged in the session.

Drawing the Line

In the aspect of accommodating students who may be racists or are uncomfortable around women, I would say it's definitely a hard call. Exactly where is the line?

In regards to the situation posted in the prompt for this, I feel like I really can't take a stand on it. My main thoughts are that as a tutor, you should use your best judgement. In a situation where I would be presented with a student who is not comfortable with being tutored by a woman, I would not tutor the student. I would go and find a male tutor who would be willing to work with them because I would rather the student have a good experience and learn in the writing center than shut down because they are uncomfortable with their tutor.

I think things might be a little different with students who are racist or write racist papers. In these cases, it might be a good idea to try and steer student's papers away from racist views. Maybe trying to help the students write more grounded and evidence based papers would help because essentially, racism is a matter of opinion. It may be a good idea to play the devil's advocate for them to help them solidify their claims. They may not like this approach because when talking about things that are attached to emotions, but if you inform them of what you are trying to do, they might accept it better.

All in all, there is a definite line. If a student does not want to work with me because I'm a woman, or because of my race, honestly don't want to work with them either. It would be better for their learning environment to adjust a little, but as a tutor it is up to you to make the call. If you still want to work with the student, by all means. But for me personally, I find it better to just let the student have his/her way so that they can have a better learning environment.

Dinner and a Movie (Maybe)

Growing up, my family generally followed the same tradition: eat turkey, and go see a movie in theaters. One year, we were out of town and ate duck at a restaurant. Things changed when I was a teenager, and we started spending it with some cousins about an hour north of where we lived. My cousin makes the best sweet potato casserole, so I didn’t mind not seeing a movie (that, and we usually saw one every other week anyway. There wasn’t much else to do in the town I grew up). Things changed again when I went off to college.

For the past ten years, my Thanksgiving plans have been varied. I almost never spent it in the same place twice in a row. For several of these years, I didn’t spend it with family either, choosing to use the break to visit friends’ families in other states.

This is the first time in ten years I will spend it with (most of) my immediate family twice in a row, and I’m exited. I’m driving down to my parents’ house in Salt Lake City Thursday morning. My sister and brother-in-law are doing all the cooking, which is great because they’re fantastic cooks. One aunt is coming down from Logan, and another and her husband is coming up from Provo. I also have to friends with no where to go coming over. The place will be packed, but my parents bought a huge table precisely for such occasions.

We’ll eat sometime in the afternoon, which honestly has always weirded me out. Why is Thanksgiving dinner so early? Wouldn’t you be able to eat more if you followed your proper eating schedule?

Considering how many people will be in attendance, I’m not sure whether we’ll keep to the movie tradition. Plus, there are small children involved, which limits our options to Rise of the Guardians or splitting into two groups. I don’t mind either. I like animated films, but they’re not for everyone. I’d feel a bit sorry for whoever draws the short straw on babysitting the kids though. We won’t cross that bridge until we come to it; my family isn’t really big on planning.

Regardless of what we do, I’ll be surrounded by family and friends, which is what every major holiday should be about. Well, that and pie.

Thanksgiving, Schmanksgiving

The first nationally-sanctioned day of thanksgiving was designated as a day to celebrate the U.S. Constitution.  That only lasted a year, and then we went back to gorging ourselves on Turkey (of course, back in the 1700s, gorging yourself meant eating the modern caloric equivalent of a Happy Meal--without the toy.  You got half of the toy a month later on Christmas).

As for me, I have all kinds of boring family plans, constituted mostly of not talking about politics, remaining in general ignorance about our shared religion, and avoiding philosophy at all costs.  We might throw in not playing interesting games, which is the logical equivalent of playing boring ones.  Oh, yeah--we're going to snarf and guzzle hot, sweet, and savory tradition for six hours straight and then try to sleep off the idealized-history haze before the long drive home from Mom and Dad's place.

Let me take this opportunity to pimp National No Shopping Day (or Buy Nothing Day, depending on who you allowed to name the concept for you).  We celebrate the day after Thanksgiving by buying nothing all day long!  You can even start your celebrations early by buying nothing on Thanksgiving, too!  Some people like to follow up on Saturday with Buy Locally-Owned Only Day.

Now, I know there's a very popular post-Thanksgiving, pre-Christmas holiday that No Shopping Day has to compete with, and that this holiday is slowly taking over the 24 hours that we traditionally reserve for Thanksgiving and the much-lauded True Spirit of Christmas.  I would like to encourage everyone to give up that holiday (what was it called?  Black, Dark, Empty Void of Consumerism Friday--or something like that. . .), and to instead celebrate this day of good will, simplicity, and gratitude for the enormous mounds of junk we already have.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We Shouldn't Accommodate Everything, Should We?

First let me say that I have really appreciated reading other people's responses to this blog prompt.  They were thoughtful, thought-provoking, and each had a ring of truth to it.

Something that occurred to me as I was thinking about this was that we haven't really grappled with something that, to me, is central to our discussion on this topic: the specific manifestation of prejudice we are being asked to accommodate.

Let me illustrate: After the class discussion, I went to the Writing Center and sat down to work on a paper before my shift started.  Laikwan sat down moments later in the seat next to me.  I turned to him and said, "Laikwan, how would you feel if someone refused to be tutored by you because you're black?  I mean, how would you want the Writing Center to respond?"  He said that he would be disappointed and would want to know for his own sake why they refused but that he wouldn't expect the Writing Center to respond correctively to the tutee.  The tutee should be permitted to wait for a different tutor if that's what he/she wants.

So I changed the question: "If you overheard them say, in reference to you, 'I don't want to be tutored by one of them,' would your response be any different?"  Laikwan said he would be very bothered if the tutee said something like that but that he still wouldn't want the Writing Center to try to correct the prejudice.

Before I go any further, I think I have to conclude that Laikwan is right.  The Writing Center, generally speaking, should do as Kellie, Amanda, and Aisley suggested: we should do our best to welcome and help all students, regardless of their prejudice.

It's interesting to consider, however, how we might respond to particularly vehement or outrageous expressions of prejudice.  If someone begins to share their prejudice in deeply offensive ways--for example, by explaining why women are inferior to men or minority races don't deserve equal treatment--are we permitted to respond?  Are we morally obligated to respond?  If so, what else are we morally obligated to respond to in student papers and expressed attitudes?  There seems to be a line somewhere between accommodating objectionable uniqueness and being complicit in bigotry, and we are right in refusing to cross that line.  Of course, I doubt most of us will face this kind of situation, but I believe in trying to have my mind in the right place and knowing where I stand.

Standing up for diversity seems like a never-ending process of reevaluation.  It seems simple at first; be accepting of everyone regardless of age, sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.  But what do we do when someone's diversity manifests itself as an ideology or a viewpoint?  Ideologies and viewpoints almost always contain hierarchy, opposition, and privileged position.  The essential quality of them is that one thing is right or correct and another is not or is less correct or some variation on that theme.  When someone is diverse by believing that women don't have the brainpower to do a man's job, do we stand up for that diversity?  If we challenge them, are we to not challenge those who proclaim equality?  Perhaps being accepting of diversity is the new prejudice.

On this matter, I have no sure answers.  I would like to trust myself when the time comes to respond in a way that I deem to be appropriate, but perhaps that's just a pretense.  Bigotry permits no ambiguity in its adherents, and it can be frightening to face down certainty when I remain so unsure.  Perhaps, faced with the choice to stand up or sit down, I'll conceal my discomfort and drift passively across that line.