Hawkward, take II

So this past Monday, the 24th, I went to the Writing Center and observed another tutoring session. This time, it was two students from the same class who were required to come in to receive help with their essays. The tutor was, uh, interesting...she began the session by saying something along the lines of "get ready for me torture you." Whatever that meant. She read the professor's comments and made some inappropriate comments about the professor and then the school. Both students had problems with their thesis statements and she explained what that was, which was alright. She also concentrated on a lot on their grammatical errors because she said that their essays were "alright." She seemed genuinely interested in the assignment and seemed to be getting along with the tutees, I just don't think she exhibited any real professional behavior.

What got me was her speech, maybe it was so that the students would be able to relate to her or something but she used a lot of profanity and made inappropriate comments. One of the students was of Latin origin and she spoke to him in Spanish most of the time and used Spanish slang. I thought this was rude because the other student didn't speak Spanish. However, he didn't really seem to mind. She asked both students to come back because she wanted to give them grammar lessons, she mentioned this to each student about twice, yet she told them that they didn't "need" her anymore. Then at one point she put her head down and sighed really heavily, I didn't know how to take that. I'm not sure if she was tired, bored, or if she had a headache.

Toward the end of the session, she had helped both students with their assignment. Both took some liking to her, especially the Latino who seemed to have gotten a lot done while she was helping the other tutee. Uhm, yeah, that's kind of about it.

I can't say I enjoyed observing the session, it made me feel super weird. However, it seemed as if neither student had a problem with the way she was doing things. They did accomplish what they went there to do and I guess that's the point but the way it was done was, uh, not cool. I guess.

So yeah.

Well that was hawkward...

So, I don't know what it is but I think I just tend to bring out the worst in people. I swear, I don't even try.

This past Thursday, the 20th of March, I went in and observed my first tutoring session. Tutors didn't seem all that friendly, in fact they seemed indifferent to my being there (not that I was expecting a big welcome but at least polite greeting would have been nice). Putting what little professionalism was exhibited by the tutors aside, I was set up with a tutor and one of his regular tutees who was revising an essay for a scholarship. The tutor did alright, he encouraged the student's train of thought and suggested ideas when the writer seemed to be at a loss for words. "Not working for me", "I'm not getting it here", and "cause and effect" were popular phrases used by the tutor during the session. I assumed that because they had worked together in the past, the student understood that the tutor was being helpful instead of antagonistic, like I kind of took it to be. All in all, the student seemed happy with the progress and felt confident enough after just half an hour. Once the student had left, the tutor praised him and asked if I had any questions. I didn't, so we went our separate ways. 

It was definitely different from the way I hold my sessions. I utilize the entire time I have with a student because there is always something for us to work on. I wouldn't say I'm a "cheerleader" but I take into consideration the fact that regardless of age, no one likes to be told that their work isn't good enough. I tend to be cautious with what I say around them because I'm actually pretty sensitive to criticism, regardless of how packed with good intention it might be. 

But yeah. 

Tutoring and what not.

I already am a tutor, I tutor in reading comprehension and I do it on the weekends. I tutor a handful of elementary school students and one middle school student. I used to help my nephews and nieces with their homework (still do, just with big projects and regents review) and found that I was enjoying myself and that kind of kick-started this whole thing. However, I'm not entirely sure I want to teach...but putting that aside, no student is the same which means that every session is different, routines are picked up but every session differs. A typical session for me will start off with a greeting and asking them about their week, did anything interesting happen (doesn't matter if it had anything to do with school or not), did they learn anything interesting? Once that is done, I ask them if there is anything in specific that they need help in (lately it's been more History than anything), and we work on that. We take turns reading out loud and I only tend to correct them with pronunciation if they ask for help, I tend to encourage them to sound words out. I encourage annotating and "chunking" as their teachers like to call it while reading. I also like to ask them to circle words they aren't familiar with (we define them together) and to underline phrases that they liked. Toward the beginning of February we spend an hour on workbooks, preparing them for the state exams. I don't do this often because they already have a lot of work but if there is something in particular that was read or spoken about during that day's session, I ask them to research it and to write about it. They're cute little overachievers so I usually end up with essays, but it's always fun to read. It's actually a lot more fun than I'm making it sound, I just reread this paragraph and it sounds hella boring. Sorry. This probably isn't even what you wanted us to blog about...