Despite now too often being relegated to the position of baby-sitter, a teacher at one time was meant to be a source of inspiration. Specifically, a teacher is supposed to bridge the space between ignorance and understanding.
People today expect automation in education. Teachers are seen as vendors of distilled information and, consequently, robbed of their actual value. Good teachers continue to chart pathways to understanding in spite of social efforts to crush this behavior in the name of efficiency. Unfortunately, a growing percentage of educators are selected for their willingness to process students as though these children are just paper work being filtered through another level of government bureaucracy.
The best teachers are in awe of their subjects and try to help the student understand why he should love the topic as well. One of my best professors earned my admiration by opening my eyes to the magnificence of every work we studied. I will never forget how he brought Beethoven to life, explaining fiercely that no one had ever heard anything like this musical madman's work; that at the conclusion of his ninth symphony, Beethoven had to be spun around to register the explosive fanfare that had commenced because he, the man who had written this masterpiece, was too deaf to hear even thunderous applause.
Danielson, my professor, bridged that gap between my ignorance and understanding and it wasn't a matter of relaying the facts to me; instead it was a matter of challenging my perspective and illuminating a pathway down which I had to choose to walk. An adequate teacher explains to you that a forest exists; a good teacher shows you it from afar; a great teacher takes you on a path deep inside and says "listen to the sounds, smell the air, and understand why it was worth coming here!"
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Seeking Mentors
I doubt I’d be what I am today without the influence of key
teaching/tutoring mentors throughout my life. During my time in the private
sector, I found refuge from the corporate approach to learning by embracing the
methods of fellow, experienced tutors. Whether intentional or not, they guided
me in my understanding of the art of teaching and of managing the
student-teacher dynamic.
One figure in particular, Chris, helped me recognize the importance of being able to both take the education and tutoring process seriously while also having a sense of humor about yourself and the student. With him, kids had a good time, and I could tell that he did as well. He is a natural born teacher and, in fact, works professionally at a public school now. But at the time, he put plenty of hours into the big-box tutoring company that the two of us met through.
Chris taught me that teaching dynamics are social dynamics. When dealing with kids, you need to embrace the kid within yourself—to an extent. You need to think like a teenager, utilize the natural authority granted to you by your position, and “lead the gang”, whether it be you and one other student or a group of 10. This usually means being funny, outgoing, teasing, and quick on your feet. Empathy is the key and perhaps heart of real teaching because students seek to learn from you when they respect you as a person.
At the same time, you can never forget you are an adult. I became quite adept at recognizing when shenanigans had gone too far and summoning a harsh tone to quiet the situation down. Furthermore, while most students enjoy being treated as an equal by an adult, it is important to correctly judge when that equality reaches the end of its fuse—stress and tough social situations can overwhelm a student.
Working with adults calls on similar empathetic skills, but offers a unique variety of intellectual challenges. Meeting with a 50 year old man or woman can be intimidating for me at 27; how do I reach someone who has twice the life experience as I? Though stressful, this creates a symbiotic tutoring relationship: whereas with children I embrace my inner-child, with adult students I rise to the standard. I grow internally while the student grows intellectually.
All of
this insight started with a mentor who showed, not told me how to
look at teaching and tutoring. Perhaps it is natural; we teachers seek to
mentor and we understand the value of a mentor for ourselves. To this day I
remain friends with Chris and we talk about school and I ask my questions about
his career. I am still learning, every time something new.
What more could a tutor ask for?
What more could a tutor ask for?
Unmotivated Students
Every once in a while, I encounter in my tutoring a student
who has absolutely no interest in the process. He or she is there by their
parent’s volition alone. The majority of these students are energetic and
intelligent outside of our sessions, so, overconfident, they immediately
attempt to negotiate or bargain with me during the first class. Tactics usually
involve wasting time on vapid conversation or guilt trips about homework
amounts. When I was new to tutoring, these tactics were not ineffective; now, I
smile and think to myself, “I just haggled price with your parents! Do you
think I’m afraid of you?!”
I have
found honesty is the best policy with the rebelliously unmotivated student. For
the most part, they have never experienced an adult speaking to them as though
expecting adult discourse in return. This simultaneously works two adolescent
weaknesses: first, they desire, unpleasant though it may be, to continue
speaking as adults; second, they are suddenly in unfamiliar territory
emotionally. However, it is important to maintain a level of amused mastery
internally. You cannot enter a heated debate with a student without
instantaneously having lost.
In an
SAT session with a rebellious student recently, the student was determined to
use an essay method supposedly “taught” to them in school. It was deplorable.
At first, I wielded authority gently and encouraged him to attempt my methods
as a test. When he refused, I finally point-blank asked him if he thought I did
not know what I was talking about. A dumb-founded “What?” was the only reply. I
asked again, calmly, “Do you think I don’t know what I’m talking about? I see
only two options for why you would ignore my advice: you think your method is
better than mine, thus I am wrong, or you don’t care about improving your score
and just want to get through this with the minimal effort.”
He was
speechless. I further asserted that a firm belief in either of those reasons
was sufficient for us to stop working together, but that I would have to inform
his parents of why we were incompatible. Though he seemed willing to jest at
adulthood briefly in a feigned attempt to stand up to me, when confronted with
the very adult task of defending himself against his parents he immediately
folded. As he should to their judgment in this situation.
It was
not the end of our struggles but it did put an end to any actual threats of
disobedience. He had made his choice, and later on when he again resisted a suggested
process because it was “too much work”, I simply asked him the same question
again and quickly received an, albeit begrudging, acquiescence.
But the
rebellious student is not the only type of unmotivated student. The second is
the frustrated student—a student who finds the material so challenging that
they find nothing but agitation in the work. Standardized Test Prep is usually
the source of this student. The problem here is not that they cannot learn to
eventually love the work. Rather, it is that the work they are being forced to
learn is too difficult and the pace they are learning too quick. I doubt I
could ever exhaust my stream of analogies for any topic, but these are useless
when what a student really needs is a reformation of the last 10 grades of
grammar curriculum. It is my job to clean up the mess, but too often I find
myself confronting the issue sideways through standardized testing and
haphazardly due to time constraints.
The most interesting and fatiguing
aspect of tutoring is playing the role of psychologist. Trying to enter the
brain of a student—including adults!—and discovering what is the best means of
opening intellectual doors in their mind.
Thoughts on Kelly Gallagher
In his
work, Write Like This, Kelly Gallagher takes great pains to highlight how demonstration is the
key to opening students’ minds to both the value of writing and their own capability to write. I am pleased to have found this man’s work—it supports my
own conclusions about teaching writing. Too often, writing is treated as a
mathematical process. Students construct sentences like adding numbers, and
copying from the black-board becomes the sacred ritual of successful learning.
But in
reality, writing is more akin to a physical activity. Any description of
writing remains entirely esoteric to the uninitiated. Conceiving of
“conciseness” and “precision” can only illustrate so much. Writing is best not
taught as theory, but instead as practice. We do not explain to a child how to
throw their first ball, we show them how by winding back our own arm and
hurling it. Writing is the same way; understanding comes from seeing and doing,
not hearing and conceptualizing.
And
yet, writing is not taught this way. Part of this is the practicality of the modern
school system. It is “more efficient” to disseminate worksheets or offer
critique through a students already written assignment. But actually helping
the student craft the assignment—demonstrating how to write a sentence, fixing
a student’s mangled sentence right then and there and discussing the thought
process, or guiding them socratically through questioning to organize both
their thoughts and eventual written output—is nearly impossible when you have
25 students.
A
writing tutor has the opportunity and, I would argue, responsibility to engage
the student at this level. The results of writing an essay with the student
word for word or explaining your thought process and questioning theirs, is
almost immediately rewarding. It is also incredibly invigorating as a tutor. It
puts you in the moment and allows you to use the craft, a refreshing and
empowering experience.
I am
not saying that note taking has no place in the tutoring lesson, but let the
notes be derived organically by your work together, rather than lectured. Start
with a simple concept such as “Conciseness” and then allow the learning to
evolve and be recorded like time-lapsed photographs of a growing plant rather
than analytic shots of an autopsy. Because taught the way writing normally is
today, that is how the student will see it: a dead body of work they have to
pick over and try to emulate. When really, it is an ancient, fluid and constant
process of which they can become a part, joining the ranks of all great humans
in as crucial a right of passage as one’s first steps.
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