Last week, I wrote about my exceptionally good consultation with a friend. After this consultation, I was on a high. After hours studying theory, observing appointments, and practicing my skills, it seemed as if I was actually succeeding on my first fledgling attempts at consulting. But just as I left the nest, wings outstretched with confidence, I fell.
Living in the farmlands of the Midwest, I learned to tell when a storm was coming. I could read it in the odd, greenish quality of the light, the stillness of the air, the sudden silence of even the birds. I wish I had this sense in a consultation. Looking back, there was nothing that indicated catastrophe, nothing that hinted at the possibility of failure. I was reading over a somewhat lengthy paper on cultural mulattos for a friend, T, that she had written the week prior. I knew that T was desperate to do well on this paper, as she had been unhappy with a previous grade in the class. I also knew that she had spent a substancial amount of time reworking the paper already, and she felt tentatively confident in what she had written.
Maybe these factors influenced how I read the paper. Maybe I was so expectant for the paper to be excellent that I saw it as excellent without REALLY concentrating on the merit of the content. In any case, I finished reading the paper with few concerns. My major concern regarded the thesis. After reading the prompt, and seeing comments on an earlier paper of T's, I knew the professor had very high expectations regarding the originality and depth of the argument. While I believed T had proved her point very well, I had a small nagging thought that this point might be too obvious, too surface level. But by saying this, when the student so clearly had given it thought, I was worried that I was overstepping a boundary. T had created this argument, it was HER idea, and if she proved it, who was I to say it was not right for the paper? The student had written 12 seemingly well-crafted pages about it. She believed in her argument, and I felt as if it would be too directive (and utterly frustrating) to tell her that she needed to rethink it.
I skirted around the issue, suggesting that she try to specify her thesis more pointedly. I asked her to try to say exactly what she was writing about in her thesis in order for it to be less general. But even with these changes, a nagging feeling of discomfort remained in the pit of my stomach. Had I done enough? Had I done too much? In "Apprenticed to Failure," Sherwood notes that the most worrisome failure of writing tutors is when students " go away apparently satisfied but leave us with a sort of crawly feeling—a suspicion that we've missed the real problem, neglected to say something that might have made a difference" (52). While I assured T of the strengths of her paper, as it really was very well-written, I wondered internally if it would be enough to get her the result she desired.
One of the benefits of tutoring a friend, or at least someone you have contact with on a regular basis, is that you are present throughout the "life" of the paper, from the idea's inception to its final grade. However, this apparent benefit can quickly transform into a major drawback. The next week, I received a text shortly before class: "got a c. don't know what happened." As I stared blankly at the images of tanks and soliders on the foreign policy Powerpoint before me, I dealt with an internal battle. Despite my attempts at being objective, of denying responsibility and attachment to the paper, I felt deeply guilty. I was four weeks away from finishing my training. I was supposed to be able to see these problems. I should be able to help an excellent student get a decent grade on a paper. Maybe my abilities weren't as strong as I thought they were. Although I knew that it was not my fault, that it was not my paper, I couldn't help but feel like I had completely failed.
I take comfort from a statement that Sherwood makes when writing about tutoring and failure.
We feel anguish when we fail to help students because we invest ourselves in
and care deeply about our work. If the opposite were true, if we did not care and
did not strive for excellence, we would find neither safety nor satisfaction, because
surrendering to our sense of inadequacy would mean failing to realize our potential
and failing to help writers realize theirs. Meanwhile, if we ignore our shortcomings,
we risk perpetuating them. (52)
At some point, I have to accept that I cannot help every writer that I wish to help. Not only must I accept this, but I must be able to separate my sense of worth as a consultant from the individual successes or failures those whom I help. I can only be a good consultant when I am able to acknowledge my weaknesses and remain confident in spite of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment