O'Bryant Reflection

I went to the O’Bryant writer’s room early Tuesday mornings to tutor students. Not going to lie, it was really hard to get up early to go since most of my classes this semester begin a little later so I feel like my brain starts effectively functioning a little later in the morning.Going into tutoring I was expecting to follow up with one or two classes during my time there but I found that I was tutoring different classes, grades, and even subjects. I thought it would be most if not all english classes but I found myself tutoring math and history classes as well. It was definitely a unique experience, seeing the various assignments given for each subject. It was also nice to be able to talk to the teachers and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of their assignments or any struggles we had with any of the students with them directly. It felt like my feedback was actually valuable and a lot of teachers actually applied our suggestions to future meetings with their classes. Seeing the different teaching styles and methods of each teacher was interesting and how they approach teaching some of the most basic concepts. It was also really helpful being able to ask the teachers what their expectations were for each assignment so that I could help the students more effectively and not give them contradicting information to what they’re being told in class. I noticed that a lot of the teachers had extremely structured, step-by-step processes on writing a paper and I initially thought it prevented the students from freely writing and determining what way they wrote best. But after talking to the teachers themselves and voicing this concern, I found that a lot of them were extremely accommodating and willing to make exceptions for specific kids who felt that they were suffering from completing the assignment in this way. They also said that the reason for so much structure was mainly for the students who had trouble beginning their assignments and was used as a guide to keep them progressing with their essays. After speaking to the teachers, I found myself wishing that my high school teachers were also like this and more accomodating, because I used to find myself stumped by the rigidity of what the teacher expected but they were unwilling to change assignments.One thing I really enjoyed during my time at O’Bryant was being able to meet so many students in the Boston community since most of the demographic I spend time with usually are just college students. Even though O’Bryant is a science and math school, a lot of the students had exceptional writing skills and I really enjoyed being able to brainstorm with them and discuss and listen to their perspectives and stances on controversial topics. Also one thing that really surprised me was that it seemed like I had some sort of authority over them as a college student even though I felt like one their peers, and they took a lot of my advice seriously and had respect for my opinions also which I was not expecting. I will definitely miss going to O’Bryant. I had never tutored at all before this and it was a unique learning experience even though I didn’t really see how it connected with my college writing class most of the time. I was able to learn how to give feedback more effectively and figure out my own thinking process when asked to think of something on the spot.