TRAPPED

Girl at Gate
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State Library & Archive of Florida
1885-1910

While I was teaching Composition at the four-year non-traditional college, one particular woman was having an unusual difficulty. She never spoke in class. I had only assigned light papers with quick topics, and her writing was confused and confusing. I began to wonder if she was stupid.

Then came the first major paper. She asked to speak to me alone. She tried to describe to me what her paper was going to be about, but she was almost incoherent. She spoke in phrases that did not connect to each other but piled up.

The 'One Girl' Effect

schoolboys 1945
Note the girls are separate 
around the corner

I once taught English classes in a place where the student body would have been almost all-male, had they not offered a "secretarial science" program for the purpose of women attending. Still, I often had classes with no women in them at all, or only one or two. It was a two-year "technical college," the type offering certificates in technical skills such as electronics and repair.

The boys tended to be in their late teens and early twenties, often fresh from high school. Very few did well in English; nor did they work very hard at it. They were there because it was a requirement. There was something particularly boyish about them, and I suspect it was quite a bit like teaching high school.

String of Pearls

I worked in the tutoring center at Cooper Union, a world-renowned scholarship school with only three majors: Art, Architecture and Engineering. Thus our students fell into three highly distinct types.

The Engineers tended to be foreign and had trouble with saying what they meant, grammar and sentence structure. The Architecture students never came- in all my years there, I saw only one. His mind was a blend of art and science and he had very little trouble with writing.

Then there were the Art students. They presented a very odd style.

The Art student writing style, reflecting the Art student mind and logic, was so creative that I never wanted to change it. Really I hated the thought of taming a creative, associative mind to be like everybody else.

In the Garage (Grad School)

Writing on the rain

For my Master's Degree thesis I evaluated the academic writing of a student at the University of Texas at Austin. He was someone I used to chat with when I worked in the library, and he'd told me that he taught himself to write. I thought that might make an interesting thesis topic and asked to see some of his college papers. They were highly unusual and I saw immediately he was not the typical student.

I had no idea what to make of such strange writing. It was not academic yet it was highly insightful. And it was fun to read! It was a whole different way of relating to the world and a different way of understanding information. It was like he was speaking a different language entirely from what students are taught to use to succeed in college. If he was unwilling or unable to use the standard academic way, should he be penalized?

Turning Point (Grading Papers)

grade book

For the first few years that I was a teacher and tutor, I gave every student the benefit of a doubt. I accepted their weak work and their excuses, feeling that nothing could be done about it, that I didn't have the right to complain, and most of all, I was afraid to be mean because I wanted my students to like me.

Enthusiasm (Grammar)

When I was a tutor at Nassau Community College, a student came in whose professor wanted her to work on grammar and sentence structure. Normally I prefer to focus on the paper itself, but this was what he wanted.

Romeo and Juliet word cloud
http://coolcardsblog.blogspot.com/

I showed the student the different ways that sentence parts and clauses can be fitted together. After each example it was like a light bulb going on. "Oh, cool!" she said every time, for coordinated sentences "Cool!", subordination, "Cool!", for all the various subordinating conjunctions, "Cool! Cool!"

Obviously grammar had seemed to her- as to most people- a tricky, pointless subject, and I was showing her the beauty of how things fit together like puzzle pieces. Next we looked at possessives, and the rules suddenly made sense, "Oh, cool!" We looked at modifiers and it clicked- "Cool!" Everything was Cool!

She floated out of the room, buoyed by her enthusiasm. She assured me she was going to read more grammar at home. I doubt the excitement would carry her for so long. It was probably a temporary elation.

Coaxing the Deer (College Entrance Essays)

I was introduced to a woman who was in distress because her son Lawrence was supposed to begin writing the essays for his college applications, but he had dug in his heels- he did not to write a personal essay about himself. He was tremendously bright, went to the city's premier high school, and was eligible for the very best colleges, but how to pass this hurdle? I agreed to try.

girl feeding deer, bronze c 1925, Herzbach & Wied

He wouldn't listen to what his mother asked him to do, but when we met I saw that he was at least listening to me. He was highly sensitive and his mind felt every nuance of another person. It was like trying to entice a nervous deer, extending an open hand and not breathing, hoping it won't bolt. His eyes still showed caution, but he was listening.

Sophistication (Special Needs)

I tutor a Down Syndrome girl named Connie who is exceedingly bright. I was teaching Connie to read. For her 14th birthday I was browsing a botanical gardens gift shop and saw this book, Sky Tree. The text was approximately a level higher than she could read. It showed a tree through all the seasons, in lovely paintings, with text personifying the tree's feelings. For example in the winter the tree feels lonely because the birds have gone.

Would Connie enjoy the story? Nothing happens, except the seasons and the lives of the tree and the animals, the way that nature changes such as the water freezes over. I was sure she would be bored. No people, no action, no storyline really. Pictures that were almost exactly alike except for season changes. But I bought it and as soon as she saw it she was delighted.

The Most Dangerous Profession

Oliver Twist picks his first pocket.
Even a thief has steady work.

Tutoring is the most dangerous profession. Even a thief has steady work, but a tutor is subject to the whims of other people, governments and budgeting. If she works for a family privately, they can cancel at any time. Maybe the student only needs temporary help, or a parent loses a job, or takes on a larger expense and can no longer afford the tutor. A tutor's schedule can change from week to week.

If she works for an agency, as do many special-needs tutors, her hours are up for review every year and the government can slice funding and overnight she is dismissed. If her special-needs client is a child, by 21 the child will age out of the system. If she works for a school, her hours are up for review every semester (three times a year) and they can cut hours, even to the point of elimination overnight. She must constantly be on the lookout for other work.

Even the best tutor may have a bad day, or make one mistake, and her tutoring quality may not be quite up to par just once. A family can judge her on that one day and assume she is a bad tutor and fire her. In fact the entire session can be perfect except for one small oversight, and the family will judge her on that.

In this, a tutor is like a heart surgeon, the President, or the guy at the controls of a nuclear power plant. She has to perform at top form and is constantly in danger of suddenly losing her livelihood overnight.

Tutors do not get served notice. What seems like a solid edifice of employment can crumble at any moment, even without warning.