Blog 13: Advice to New Tutors

Any advice I would give to new tutors would need to be included with this  important disclaimer: I am not an expert writing tutor. I have only been here for a short time, so my knowledge and experience is not nearly as good as that of a master tutor who has been working as a writing tutor for years and years. That would be my first piece of advice – watch and learn from the masters. The master tutors have been in difficult tutoring sessions and know how to handle them gracefully and professionally. Also, learn to relax. If this tutoring session doesn’t go well, take it as a learning experience, and move on to the next student. Each tutoring session is a fresh start. Any bad feelings created during one session should be erased so that your next victim-(*cough) student feels welcome and that they are in a safe place to ask questions and learn. Show the student that you care by listening to their concerns. Empathize with them, but keep the session on task. Try to befriend them so that they feel you are trying to help them, not judge them. Realize that there will be tutees who are at different levels of writing competency, and that you should never make them feel belittled by emphasizing the gap between their ability and yours. Praise their strengths to increase their confidence, but don’t be afraid to gently point out their mistakes or make suggestions for improvement. Remember that this is their paper, not yours. You are not supposed to be co-author of the paper, so keep your ideas and your writing to minimum. Have the student come up with as much of the ideas as they can. If you fix the paper for them now, they will learn to rely on having someone else edit their papers rather than learning to catch their mistakes for themselves.

Blog 12

My experience as a tutor has definitely affected the way I do homework in other classes. For one thing, I am much, much more conscious of grammar rules. It has even taken me to the point that it sometimes takes me longer to write an essay than it used to before because now I think to myself, ‘what was the grammar rule about that again…?’ My papers lately are much better than my previous ones and my writing style seems to be more clear and concise. I also find myself feeling more comfortable and confident talking to people that I haven’t met before, which is not something that comes naturally to me.

Being a tutor has also put me in a position that have not experienced a lot, and that is being a teacher. Trying to help people understand a concept can be exhausting, so in a way, I feel more sympathetic toward my professors than I have in the past. I think that most professors (with a few exceptions) want to be good teachers and help their students to succeed, and it must hard when they have lessons that don’t go as well as they expected, or when getting students to talk in class is like pulling teeth, or when they have a stack of ungraded papers that keeps getting bigger and a time window that keeps getting smaller. I’m thankful for their patience and assistance.

Blog 11

In  a way, I think there is a sort of uncomfortable inconsistency between the way we accommodate middle-eastern students’ views/expectations of women and yet we say that we have zero tolerance for discrimination. Considering the example about a racist student from the South doing a study abroad in England being tutored by a black student, I personally don’t think his beliefs should be respected or accommodated. It sets a precedent that says it is okay to treat people differently because of their race/their gender/their orientation/their religion. If every white student were to refuse being tutored by this black student, it’s likely that he would soon be out of a job. It is shallow and superficial to assume that a person’s physicality (skin color, gender, disability, etc.) has anything to do with their personality or intellectual capacity.

 That said, when it comes to accommodating any middle-eastern student who disdainfully believes there is nothing a woman could possibly teach him, he should be given the polite equivalent of ‘suck it up cupcake’, and be invited to join the next available tutor (be it a man or a woman), or be asked to leave. Cultural values should be respected – to an extent. Westerners who visit Middle Eastern countries (especially religious sites) are expected to dress and behave in a manner that is respectful to the local culture. This expectation should work both ways, meaning that Middle Easterners who visit the West should expect to align themselves with our local culture and treat women respectfully, the same as men, since emphasis on individuality and equality are a huge part of America’s culture.

Blog 10: Reluctance and Resistance

            All educators must deal with reluctance and resistance. It is extremely common in every form of education, formal and informal. Many of the theorists we have read have been interested in pointing out the problems with the education system; the theorists point out that these problems tend to arouse sentiments that tend to lend themselves to worsening the learning of the student. Especially when the problems of power become apparent and the relationship between the teacher and the student is often when students begin to disengage. I have had experience with this in the writing center, and it has been one of the hardest things for me to face, as I have also been on the resisting and reluctant side of this issue, and I don’t know if my concerns were ever resolved nor that I can fully resolve any of the student’s. The best we can do is let them know that we are their advocate whether through our actions or through our

            The occasions when I most often experience reluctance and resistance in the tutoring center is when I am helping a student who feels that they are either forced to come to the writing center and don’t require any assistance and the students who feel that they have received or are receiving bad grades from a professor when they feel that they are superb writers. Often times, these students can be calmed down by just suggesting that there are things that we always need to work on, but there are many cases where the students are simply in a state of anger.

            It is often the case that when a student is experiencing this sort of anger or frustration, it is probably not going to result in an excellent tutoring session. Often times these students are combative or even, in many cases, withdrawn from the session. These are the students who will answer texts during a session, talk on the phone, stare at the wall, etc.

            I address combative behavior often by spending more time on single issues addressing the disputed points and giving the tutee credit where credit is due and explaining the concepts where it would be helpful. With disengaged students, I have taken the advice given by other tutors to mimic their behavior; I will sit back in my chair and wait for them. Oftentimes I decide that I might write that the student was actively disengaged during the session, but so far, the mimicking tactic has worked and brought tutees back into the session although I sometimes cannot change their attitude.

            I think the most important part is to respect them and know that they may be having a bad day or may be in over their head; however, respect for the tutee cannot override respect for ourselves as tutors. It is important to stand our ground and let students know that we are there for their benefit, not our own, despite what our paychecks say. I do think that genuine care for the tutees tends to be the game saver when a session seems to be taking a wrong turn or is coming under pressure. When the tutee senses that you genuinely want to help them do their best, I think they are very grateful and they have a very hard time continuing to be hostile. Overall, I think a mixture of these strategies can overcome these sentiments, and I hope that in the future the education system begins redesigning itself to not create them in the first place, granted some things are unavoidable.