tooter

I had the pleasure of tutoring someone the last time I was in the Writers Room. We worked on grammar worksheets and I learned that I didn't like how simple it was. I imagined that I was in the classroom with the student and I had just received the worksheets as an assignment. I thought about how I would have read the directions and thought about how dumb the people handing the assignment to me must have thought I was. I imagined ways I could avoid doing it.

Putting myself into my clients classroom and imagining my own reaction helps me understand where the client may be coming from. They aren't necessarily stupid or lazy, they don't necessarily hate school, they just think about things differently than me. This is an important lesson to learn before trying to tutor someone.

In, "The Tutor's Role: Developing and Informed Practice," Murphy places lessons like this in pre-textual, the first stage of developing a tutoring method. Probably the best time to implement empathy would be towards the beginning of the conversation to best ensure that you both are equals in the tutoring session. When I let my client know that I too, thought the grammar worksheets were stupid, we became more than just consultant and client. We became two people tasked with the same problem. When two people share the same problem, that's when the conversation begins.

Murphy, Christina and Steve Sherwood. The St. Martin's Sourcebook for Writing Tutors. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008.