Hey all,
Kathryn and I had another mentor meeting today. She was a little concerned because she has had a weekly student that hasn’t come into the LS all semester – but don’t we all have that one student! I suggested that next time, she go to the front desk and tell them she can take a drop-in student, but mention that she has had a weekly student that hasn’t come in. We talked about the whole “pen in hand” issue again. She had an ESL student that wanted her to check her grammar and make sure that the sentence flowed. The student wanted Kathryn to read her paper aloud (the student was worried about her English). They went through it once, and then they went back over it. I explained to her that this is a great technique because it doesn’t make the student as nervous – we talked about this last week. We both sort of do the same thing, go through the paper once, making notes and then going back to revise it with the student.
We also talked about uncomfortable sessions. I shared my story to Kathryn about the student that we had last summer. He would come in and go from female tutor to tutor without letting the front desk know. Well, he wrote a very graphic and inappropriate paper on Gladiator. Needless to say, these “scenes” were not in the movie, but were graphic enough to make me extremely uncomfortable. When the session was over, two hours later, all the other female tutors said that he was inappropriate to them and was very aggressive. Well, he is here sometimes, so I asked Kathryn what she would have done in that situation. How would she handle a two hour session with a student who seemed like he had a LD? Kathryn said that she wouldn’t have let the student stay for two hours in the first place. I always advise by this, but I did think that he had a LD because he wasn’t focused but was really motivated to write and seemed like he appreciated the time that I was giving him. Kathryn did laugh because if he was part of the Fiction Department, he would have just fit in just fine. I guess they like when people are graphic…it expresses their personality through their writing, and they don’t want censorship. But anyway, she says it’s hard to say because it’s one of those “In the moment situations,” which it was. I told Kathryn that if this ever happens again, excuse yourself saying you’re going to the bathroom, or message the front desk on MSN. Too bad we didn’t have that in the summer. But hey, lesson learned.
So there hasn’t been much going on, it’s been pretty slow. I hope you all have a good weekend!
-KC
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Hey Kendra,
ReplyDeleteGood postings this week! I have nothing much to add here regarding some of the mentoring that you have provided for Kathyrn all semester. Bravo! Yes, certainly if a student has not shown all semester, we should ask the front desk if there are any drop-ins to take. As far as ESL students and "pen in hand" as mentioned in previous posts,if this helps them become more comfortable writing English, then so be it! Good, revisiting some of the stuff we discussed at the mentor-mentee meeting.
Now onto more serious issues. Dealing with agressive students is never easy, especially for female tutors. Combined with possible LD issues--not good...Remember that if ANY TUTOR feels uncomforable with a student you can refuse to work with that student. As a community,the LS/WC is here to support tutors as much as possible, so feel free when such situations occur to inform the front desk or Nita. In the past, we have had some agressive writers with groping hands and such; usually they were placed with another tutor (usually male) or asked never to come back to the WC. I know this last solution seems harsh but when all else fails...There have also been instances not of sexual agression and such but of extreme views expressed in a student's writing. So now the question of 'how far do I work on the student's paper without being offended?' must be answered. Of course, this is a big issue for sexist, racist, anti-semetic language spewed forth by the unenlighted. We get into the fuzzy area of protecting free expression, so I guess I would leave it up to each tutor's tolerance for this sort of thing. I hope you guys talked about this in WCTP, if not there are lots of articles about this sensitive topic. What do the other mentors think about this?
Steve