I remember being quite unsure that I was going to be able to successfully tutor writing to high schoolers at the start of the semester. Just four months ago. And at the orientation it seemed like everything they said and taught us made sense but I never thought I would actually be able to do all those things. Little did I know that it wasn't the actual tutoring that was hard, but getting the kids to want the tutoring was the issue. So the challenge when I finally arrived at O'Bryant laid in approaching the kids the right way, especially if they were very demotivated and unwilling to work. I had difficulties with this at first because I felt it wasn't clear to the students that they were SUPPOSED to get help, and that it wasn't their choice to. Claudia continually asked me to just sit down and directly help someone but I felt like that was a tad too aggressive. On the other hand, when I walked around asking if anyone wanted help, no one seemed to need it. When I finally figured out that I was simply supposed to walk up to someone that looked stuck, introduce myself, ask what they were writing about, and then give a suggestion, it became a lot easier. It was like a "you-didn't-see-this-coming" moment for them. In reality they ALL needed help but didn't realize it, so you had to familiarize yourself with them, maybe even try to relate to them and tell them about it, and then help them out without giving them the choice. I felt like this was a less aggressive way to do it.
On top of this I was initially worried that I had never read any of the books that they were reading and therefore wouldn't be able to help them. But I found that all I had to do was looking at whether or not the paragraphs made sense with the thesis. It didn't matter if I had read the book, I just had to ask them the same basic questions that I ask myself when I write a paper.
The one thing I think O'Bryant should maybe work on is grammar training as I said, because these kids are PLENTY smart and write about super difficult topics, and they practice writing thesis papers plenty as well, but they don't know how to write formally. I think there should be some more writing training in that regard.
My worst day at O'Bryant was this one day where I was standing in as a tutor in an actual class, with Claudia and two other tutors, and the kids were just so unwilling to work and didn't know they were supposed to bet help and looked very angry when you asked them what they were working on. One kids swore at Claudia and two girls were quite rude to me when I asked them about their papers and started laughing and stuff. This was already a tough day for me so I think I took it a little more to heart than I should have... But I have come to realize over the last couple of years that high schoolers just have no sense of care for other people and are generally inconsiderate...
Finally, yes, I have come to enjoy O'Bryant quite a bit, I actually do like tutoring and teaching, because the times where you re successful it is such a great win and it feels good to possibly have made a difference for a kid even if it were just another thought they have in their head when they write next time.
Thanks Sebastian for forcing/giving me this opportunity ahaha,
Caroline
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