Mostly good

I'm happy that, once again, I did not have a full docket today, even with two drop-ins. One of the drop-ins took the place of a canceled appointment; the last one--to whom I just said good-bye--wasn't able to stay for the full time. She thought we could work through her essay in about five minutes, and she didn't have it printed out, so I ended up working on the Google Docs file on her laptop, which I don't like doing--but I used the "comments" function to leave her overall feedback.

That last student was the only annoying student of the day. She doesn't want to think, doesn't want to work, is letting frustration shut her down entirely. I need to have little tokens to hand out, like those little inspirational pebbles one sees in certain gift shops, that say, "Yes, it is hard. Do it anyway." With this student, I had to do the lecture that goes, "Does giving up help you achieve your goals?" "All I want is to pass the class." "OK, so does giving up get you there?" "No." "OK, so if you want the outcome, you have to do the work to get there; you have to white-knuckle your way through."

I don't think she really took that in, but ... she's not my problem. I doubt she'll be back (after all, I was making her work). Her little "this won't take long" ended up requiring more substantial, in-depth work than she expected. I couldn't just check to see whether the final sentence of each paragraph was appropriate because she hadn't yet identified her thesis, so there was nothing for each paragraph to tie back to, which is the purpose of the final sentence in a paragraph.

I compare her to my first student today, one of my regulars. I'm going to call her Silent Betty; I've mentioned her before. Her voice is getting a little louder every time I see her, but every time I see her, I wonder what constellation of factors--personal, familial, and cultural--have led her to silence herself. She said that her professor told her she has trouble with subject-verb agreement, which is true, though I saw more systemic problems with verb tenses and forms. She said her professor also told her she tended to write sentences that are awkward, which is also true. The painful truth, however, is that she really wanted a simple, magic rule she could use so she never makes the mistakes again, and there isn't one. And she's terrified that she's not going to pass her exit exam: she needs a 3.5 to pass, and on her midterm she got a 2.5. She wanted to do some exercises on agreement, so I showed her where to find them on the web, but then she said she wanted to do them with me--and started to cry. The end of our session was mostly me offering comfort and encouragement. Some of the encouragement was of the "tough love" variety: reminding her that even if she does not pass the exam, it's not the end of the world and doesn't say anything bad about her as a person. But I also told her that she is doing all the right things: she's coming in for help, she's trying her hardest--and I told her she is being very strong and brave to do those things. That wasn't blowing smoke, either. For someone as timid as she is, coming in for help is being strong and brave. But it's interesting to observe how much she brings out the Mommy in me. I want to shelter and protect her, as well as to encourage and even (gently) push her.

My other two students today were both first-timers to the Center. The first of those is the older brother of a student who as briefly in my magic 101 last semester. The younger brother withdrew, probably wisely, but both these young men are very intelligent. I don't think I saw much if any writing from younger brother, but I can say that the student I saw today writes very well on a sentence level, except for a slight tendency to orotund but empty phrasing. The bigger problems were ideas that were not fully connected or explained--and a loss of focus on the overall topic. He was meant to write about his identity but wrote more about the changing demographics of his home town. We talked about how those demographics may have helped form his identity but are not the point except insofar as they help him talk about his own sense of self. He certainly got the point, and in a lovely switch from the usual, he came in well before the essay is due, so he has time to work on it.

The second new student was a little more of a challenge to work with, but only a little. She'd missed the maximum number of classes for her comp class--including all the classes in which the professor went over the research assignment. So she and I went over how to select a topic, the fact that the topic needed not only to be something controversial but something that could be supported with facts (so just that she supports a woman's right to an abortion is not sufficient focus). I showed her the basics of database research and the citation tools. By Monday, she needs to have done enough research to have a works cited page and to have an introduction fleshed out. I don't agree with the tactic of doing the introduction first, of course, but ... not my class, not my problem.

So, that's the week. In a little bit here, I'll head over to Bradley and round up Cathy; we have a dinner date for tonight, which I know will be largely Cathy venting about how horrible things are, not just at NCC but in the world at large, and me trying to steer the conversation into less utterly depressing territory. Maybe I can get her going on her grandchildren....

I'm interested to note that, even though I don't have to accomplish anything by the end of semester, I still have a little touch of that "omigod, it's coming up so fast; hold on to the safety bar and scream" feeling. My sense of mild panic is slightly different, insofar as this year, the panic is "pretty soon it will be summer and I'll need to be serious about getting packed up to move..."