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The Reflective Consultant
Use this space to reflect on your own experiences. These stories may or may not fit into other categories already listed, but the idea here is to focus on practices that make us better consultants.
I remember how flattered I felt when asked to be a Writing Consultant. English was the one class that I really didn’t struggle with since returning to college. Having my instructor recommend me fed a need to be recognized. I wanted to be the best consultant ever; thoughts of grandeur passed through my mind as I imagined lines of students who only wanted me to read their papers. (If this were e-mail, there would be a smiley face with a wink right here) Secretly, I think I wanted be like Ann Sullivan in the Helen Keller movie when Helen finally understood the meaning of the word water and started saying “wa-wa”; the barrier of language was broken. Of course I really didn’t think that students would actually start running around the library shouting, “I get it, I understand what a thesis is—finally I get it.” But, there was a little part of me that wouldn’t have minded. The first few weeks on the job were very slow and I let the veteran tutors take the students as I listened closely to what they had to say and how the consultants managed their time. The more I listened, the less confident I became. I overheard one comment regarding something about a comma splice and I started to panic while asking myself, “What the heck is a comma splice? Am I supposed to know that? What am I doing here? I need consulting. I am not an English major”. I started praying that no one would show up and feeling sorry for the students who got me to review their papers. Even my own papers seemed to need help. One day as I was leaving a two-hour shift feeling rather small, I walked by a student near the exit of the library. She had tears rolling down her cheeks and her face was flushed as she passed through a crowd of people; I remember thinking, “How sad nobody even bothers to ask if she is alright”. After I passed through the doorway to the outside patio, I realized I was one of those people who hadn’t bothered and guilt sent me back in to see if I could find her. Relieved she was nowhere in site, I stopped off to go to the ladies room and while washing my hands, to the right of me, I noticed the crying woman drying her eyes near the trashcan. I asked her if she was o.k. and she preceded to tell me how awful her English class was and how she was failing. The
- Monica G.
I love Monica's story. It reminds me of why I love tutoring so much. It isn't about how smart I felt, the friends I made, or the great line on my resume. No... the thing that drew me back to tutoring long after I finished by B.A. was how great it felt helping others "get it." To help a student who was struggling with an essay, to give them a tip or share an experience that helped me get through my classes, that's really what it was all about for me. That's what made it great for me and what made me miss it terribly once I'd left.
I hope all of you have found that joy. If not everyday, at least every so often. Often enough to remind you what great work you're all doing. It's easy to get caught up in the rush of things. It's easy to help too much, or to focus on the grammar, fix the surface mistakes. But as Monica says, empowering another person to succeed is the real joy. It's addictive and a long-lasting reward for the consultant and the student. I felt that joy when I tutored and it made me want to help as many others as I could. I wish that for you, too.
- Brandi B.
I can truly relate to this, and I too loved your story, Monica.
When I first started working at the Community Learning Center my very first session was tutoring a man who wanted to practice for his upcoming U.S. citizenship examination. He knew the system, and before I even introduced myself he expressed his desire to practice his "N400." I said, "Sure, that's great!" But all that was running through my skull was WHAT IN THE WORLD IS A N400? I had never heard of the thing; it sounded like he wanted to practice a little robot language or something, R2D2, C3PO, I had no idea what was going on and I felt completely ill-prepared for the job. I ran to Debi, (the CLC morning coordinator,) for help, who explained to me the details, etc, etc, and the man and I had several more sessions the following few weeks. He was terrified that he would fail his exam, but the man knew the information front, back, and in multiple languages. He just lacked confidence in the same way of Monica’s tutee.
At the time I was a little rusty with my U.S. history just like Monica was with comma splices, but by the time this man was prepared for his exam, I was mentally equipped for all the U.S. citizenship sessions for which The Grid could possibly book me. Anyway, anyway, the part where I really connect with Monica's tale is a few days after the man's last session, when he returned to the CLC to announce, (bearing roses for the tutors who helped him,) that he was elated to finally be a United States citizen. I'll never forget how pleasant it felt to know I had a hand in helping this man achieve one of his goals. The CLC has since been my favorite of the campuses to work at, and for me coaching citizenship is by far the most rewarding aspect of being a tutor.
-Asami R.
These inspiring accounts highlight two important issues, it seems to me. Not sure which is more important, but lately I'm liking the business of confidence-building. The hypothesis is that most students are capable, really, of learning what they need to know by themselves, without our help, but they prefer, for myiad reasons, to go about it in a supportive social environment. Whether our support enables them to become confident individualists forevermore may be neither true, nor desirable . . .? The other issue is about us being knowledgeable and competent in our field; I love it, Asami, that you ran right out to get up to speed on what you needed to know to offer substantive help, as well as encouragement.
Scott H.
This is a rather grim story, and I hesitated to include it in a collection for the edification of new tutors and writing consultants. There are no techniques to be learned here. If you want a happy ending you should stop reading this right now.
I worked with “Donna” intermittently over three semesters – not every week, but I would see her several times for each paper she had to turn in for English 201 (critical thinking) and for a general philosophy class. The difficulty for me was that I realized after a while that I would not be enjoying my usual success in helping to prepare her for the next level in her academic career. The difficulty for Donna was that she suffered from multiple sclerosis (MS), and her condition was inexorably deteriorating.
When we first met, she appeared to be only mildly impaired; she seemed a little unsteady on her feet, and her hands trembled. But she described her condition to me frankly and what her physicians had told her to expect; her goal was to continue her education until she could no longer walk. How long that might be, she didn’t know, but in the meantime, she intended to work toward her degree. Her situation was especially hard for her because she was relatively young, in her 30s, and had been an active sportswoman and swimmer, and was used to traveling around the world to exotic diving locations. It was soon apparent that her mental abilities were also becoming unsteady; she had difficulty organizing her thoughts, remembering topics, and concentrating. The sad difference between Donna and other students with disabilities I had worked with was that hers was getting noticeably worse by the week. I felt a great responsibility to her, irrespective of the progress that might or might not be made, because she had chosen to spend the little active time she had left with me – not me personally, but me as a representative of her last chance to meet her educational goals. I could not help but wonder what I would do with my time if I knew I had but a little of it left; surely, time is never more significant than when you are running out of it.
So naturally I tried to make every second of our sessions to be “quality time;” to make the process positive and worthwhile, because I was haunted by the likelihood that her stated goals were not going to be realized. I have known other desperately ill people who, while their bodies betrayed them, were mostly concerned with keeping their minds functioning, and it was Donna’s mental struggles that occupied both our efforts. There are no procedures in the Tutor Manual that cover this.
A physician friend once told me that the hardest thing about being a doctor is that sooner or later you lose all your patients. There is a temptation here to apply the metaphor to tutoring, whereby we see students for a short while and then they go away, on with their lives and careers; but that misses the sharp point. It is rare in tutoring that we will lose our students in the sense that they are dying, and they know it, and you know it, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. It is possible, I suppose, that a miracle of modern science or metaphysical intervention occurred to reverse the process; I don’t know because she went away and didn’t come back. This story is not really about tutoring, is it? If there is a point, it is that all kinds of people appear in the Writing Centers of community colleges, and for some of our interactions with them, there are no tricks or tips for us to follow. Sometimes it’s just about living the day.
Scott H.
That's a very powerful tale, Scott. I like the metaphor of a doctor seeing patients in a general sense, but you're right that it doesn't do justice to the fine point that doctors stop seeing their patients for a much grimmer reason. Even today--30 minutes in--I've already seen two of my former tutees. Though it's been two semesters since I saw them once a week in a learning community, it gives me great pleasure to see them around campus. Most of the time I remember their names, but even their faces are enough reason to smile and say hello. It's strange to imagine losing one... or even to have to wonder about someone you suddenly don't see anymore.
Your story may not so much be about tutoring, as you said, but I think it's important to reflect on our community as you're doing. Our students are so diverse, their needs so different... We can only try our best to serve them all and hope that we make small differences, as I'm sure you did.
- Brandi B.
Re: our training meeting
Since mild confusion over the relative importance of attending to grammatical errors comes up at nearly every training session, I thought I would offer a bigger-picture summary here that might help to settle some of the dust. But I doubt it.
One of the books that Brandi mentioned today, which is in our Tutoring library (sorry, don't have author and title at hand) is a collection of essays related to the origination and intent of Writing Centers (WCs). In brief, WCs were invented partly because of academic dissatisfaction with the way that old-school English tutors were focussing on and "fixing" sentence-level errors on student's papers. The New Paradigm, based on Rogerian psychology and concentrating on the writer, and not the writing, necessarily devalued grammar as a minor concern. Hence, the notable lack of attention to sentence-level mechanics and the marking of papers in writing consultant training. Soon, however, WCs underwent a sort of identity crisis because in the face of their exalted goals concerning global issues and higher-order thinking, regiments of remedial and ESL students kept marching into WCs expecting and demanding help with their rudimentary deficiencies -- which was not part of the plan, you see.
The result is that we tutors have to wrestle independently with an issue that should not, in my opinion, be in contention. Are grammar skills important, or are they not? Should we ourselves be knowledgeable, or do we just refer the student to a textbook? Are standards of writing worth preserving, or is the advent of a technological and image-based media culture making the discipline obsolete?
One of the reasons we tutors have to deal with the issue at the college level is that many educators in the lower grades decided the matter wasn't important, and kicked the thing down the road. Obviously, we can be of only minimal help to students if we share that attitude and suffer from the same deficiencies ourselves; but does it matter? What if some professors and WCs also want to kick it? I have strong feelings about this, but I'm tired of shouting them at myself, and would like to hear some of yours . . .
Scott H.
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