Very easy day

Annabelle was my first student of the day, and today's session was pretty easy as she hadn't actually done any work to speak of since the last time. I repeated a lot of what I'd said before, and in a departure from usual, she left before the 45-minutes were up. Not by much, but even so: that ten or fifteen minutes was nice to have. My second student was someone I'd seen once before; I can't come up with a specific moniker for him, as he's essentially a generic "not ready for college language immersion" student. In fact, today I wasn't entirely sure why he came in to see me: he didn't have any particular questions, and what he really needs is simply to use his awareness of the mistakes he most typically makes in order to go back through his essays and work to correct them. He was distressed because he had done some practice writing at home, a situation in which he had plenty of time, and he made more mistakes in that writing than he did in the practice exams he'd done in class under time pressure. I explained that he probably didn't apply the same concentrated focus to the work at home, ironically precisely because he had plenty of time. But I had no magic solution for him: he just needs to keep practicing. I explained the learning trajectory to him; I can't recall if I'd talked with him about it before, but I know I've said it to other ESL students--though it applies to all students who are struggling with grammar or punctuation rules. The first stage is, you don't know you're making the mistake. The second stage is that you know you make the mistake, but you keep on making it. The third is that you make the mistakes but catch and correct them. And if you're lucky, you get to the stage when you no longer make the mistakes at all. (Suddenly, I think of my experience learning to play fiddle: exact same trajectory, though I am not at all sure I will ever get to that fourth stage.) I think a lot of English Language Learners think that they shouldn't experience the second and third stages but should somehow pole-vault directly to stage four, so a lot of my job is to reassure them that the mistakes are normal and are part of a learning process--and that learning a new language takes a lot of time. That applies to native speakers of English who have never learned "standard" English--or, more narrowly, academic English. It's like an entirely new language for them, and it takes a while to master.

Getting back to Annabelle, however: I realize that she is a classic case of a specific kind of student with whom my colleagues and I are all too familiar. She can only see generalizations, not subtle but specific differences. Forests, not trees. More to the point, she (and students like her) can't even tell that a forest is made up of a lot of individual trees: it's just one big, solid entity to them, and when we say, "Yes, but look at the fact that this is a forest that has a lot of oak trees, whereas this one has more poplars" or whatever, they get very dismissive: "Whatever. Trees. Forest. All the same thing."

And I am thinking about that because it occurs to me to wonder why some people seem interested in and excited by finding out that there are all those differences and others simply do not want to go there, at all, ever--and sometimes just won't, no matter what their refusal does to their academic progress. I don't think it's a kind of fear; many forms of apparent resistance are fears of one sort or another, but this doesn't feel like a fear issue to me. What could be scary about seeing more and more and more details? So maybe this is a case when it comes down to sheer laziness. My colleagues often accuse students of being lazy when I think something more profound is going on, but it is true that it requires some mental effort to get into particulars and minutiae, and some people just don't want to exert the effort. That baffles me because I have an innate sense that delving into that kind of mental work can be intensely pleasurable, and it's hard for me to truly believe that other people don't find the pleasure in it at all. But I think that's the case. I can certainly think of parallels, things that require a kind of effort that I do not find pleasurable in the least but that other people find deeply gratifying (working up a sweat and getting the heart pounding doing any form of physical exercise other than swimming, for instance). Still, people who really, truly do not find any enjoyment in the exercise of their mental muscles probably don't belong in college: there are other ways they can find pleasure in exerting themselves that can still lead to gainful employment.

This I guess gets into the argument about the purpose and value of a college education. And all my readers know that I am a firm and unwavering advocate of the mental expansion that is the prime purpose and result of a liberal arts education. But I'll dismount that particular hobby horse for now: I can gallop around on it some other time.

As it happens, today ends my week in the Center: I won't be in on Thursday because I had to schedule a routine doctor's appointment but the only time that I could do was a Thursday in the middle of my usual work day. But this is what those days of sick leave are for, I reckon. At least, that's what I'm going to use it for; this will be the second of three possible days of sick leave that I got, so why not. So, my faithful readers, please don't go away simply because there will be a spell of no new posts. I'll be back posting on Monday--and I suppose there's the outside chance I'll end up doing some of my freelance tutoring later in the week (though that seems to have dried up for the time being), and if there is, well, maybe I'll post. But whatever transpires, good lord willin' and all that, I'll be back here posting away next week.