Reaction to "Allegory of the Cave"
"The Allegory of the Cave" reads as though you are eavesdropping on a conversation. I noticed similar themes in the two readings assigned. They both concerned seeking the truth, if for different reasons. Bacon was more interested in seeking truth for truths sake. Whereas, Plato, in this excerpt, explored finding truth, and thus wisdom, in order to make good rulers of the State. "The Allegory of the Cave" was refreshing to read after "The Four Idols" because it was easier to understand, and it was free of the criticism and conceit of Bacon's essay.
Reaction to "The Four Idols"
amongst all of his ranting and criticizing, Bacon had some interesting ideas to talk about in "The Four Idols". The most interesting for myself being the idea that people are usually more ready to believe in something they want to be true. "For what a man rather were true he more readily believes". On this point, Bacon and I agree. A parent would rather believe in the lies of their child than of ill deeds the child may have committed. A good man who has killed and remembers nothing, would rather believe in his innocence upon faced with the truth. Or that he was rightly justified, or had no other choice than to do that he did. Moral or immoral implications aside, it is not hard to see why human nature would lend itself to think this way. "Therefore he rejects difficult things from impatience of research, sober things, because they narrow hope...". While I may not agree with everything Bacon says, I can agree that this is one hurdle of human nature that needs to be overcome on the search for truth.
Reaction to "Thinking in Education"
Two pieces of writing were assigned to be read, Montaigne's "Of the Education of Children" and Dewey's "Thinking in Education". They feature completely different styles of writing while discussing similar subject matter. While they both concern education, Montaigne's approach is inviting and humorous. Dewey's style of writing in this instance is more technical, more akin to a scientific study.
Dewey emphasizes experiences and the application of ideas to real life problems and situations for the pupil. He also says that "...the first stage of contact with any new material, at whatever age of maturity, must inevitably be of the trial and error sort. An individual must actually try, in play or work, to do something with material in carrying out his own impulsive activity...". I have run into this in my own experiences. Two of my hobbies include watching anime and playing video games, both of which have ties to the Japanese language. I began to watch scenes in Japanese and try to listen and pick out words and phrases that I heard often or could recognize. Later, when I began taking Japanese language classes, as I learned the material, I kept thinking back to scenes or situations that I had seen and to connect new pieces of information with things I had already pieced together on my own. When I formally learned of something that I intuitively understood but couldn't place into words, my understanding of it became much clearer. Eventually, I hope to put this knowledge to use with a trip or homestay in Japan.
Reaction to "Of the Education of Children"
Montaigne writes to Countess de la Foix his ideals for tutoring her soon to be newborn child. He discusses many things in this essay, but for the sake of time, or rather the lack there-of, I will focus on only one of these. Montaigne voices that only few of many students will get much out of a lecture. He says that different students need different lessons. Throughout my experiences as a student, I have found this to be true. There are times when, despite a teacher's best efforts, I struggle with understanding a concept or idea. Later on, a tutor or friend or my own research may help me to understand what was being taught. Conversely, I have seen other students struggle, or simply absorb less, than myself during certain lectures. This can be attributed to many things. A particular student's aptitude towards a certain subject, or a learning style that coincides with the teacher's teaching style. In the end, it is the student's responsibility to get further help when it is needed.
Chapter 6
Chapter six's title is appropriate for its content, Tutoring and Technology. One of the most useful sections in this chapter was the list of online resources given. Links to online writing labs, writing guides and handouts, and even tutor training videos are listed. Each has a brief description of the content included on the site. I plan to familiarize myself with at least one of these web pages before my first tutoring session.
Chapter 8
This chapter was a bit different than any of the previous chapters. Instead of covering an aspect of writing, it looks at possible problematic situations that occur in the world of tutoring. It mainly focuses on tutees with different types of negative attitudes towards their assignments, teachers, or the tutoring center. For example, the author gives suggestions to deal with an unresponsive writer. The author suggests being patient and polite, encouraging the writer as much as possible, trying to make the session short and helpful, reminding the writer that you're there to help, and recognizing that even the best tutors may not be able to change a writer's attitude. There are also suggestions of what not to do, most of which include not lecturing or scolding the writer, as well as keeping your cool.
Chapter 7
Chapter 7 gives many checklists of questions for tutors to ask themselves about different types of papers. It made for a pretty dry read, but was a good review of the information that should be included in specific types of writing, like scientific papers. While it might not have been all that interesting of a chapter, it will certainly prove useful in the future. A quick review of this chapter before actually tutoring should help with tutors who are struggling with the question of where to start a session. As a side note, the comics provided were amusing.
Chapter 5
Chapter 5 deals with problems and concerns the writer may have that should be taken into consideration. People have pressures coming from many different things in their life. Coping with independence, children, jobs, and other classes are just a few of them. As tutors, we must try to be sympathetic and respectful. There could also be cultural differences to work through, or a writer whose second language is English may come into the writing center. English is a difficult language, and as a student of Japanese, I can understand how hard it is to learn another language. Some writers may have learning disabilities or basic writing skills. The bottom line is, as tutors, it is our job to help make others better themselves at writing, no matter what kind of difficulties they may be having.
Chapter 4
Chapter 4 discussed several approaches to help writers start an assignment. Some of them, such as freewriting, are techniques that I have used myself in the past. They help to formulate ideas on paper. This generates a feeling of progress and a means by which to begin to structure the paper. These beginning stages are often what I struggle with the most when writing.
This chapter also gave some advice for making global and sentence level revisions. A few of the more interesting suggestions included reading a tutee's writing as a naive reader, and stopping at the end of a paragraph or section to summarize what was already read and anticipate what comes next. For sentence level revisions, the author suggested having the tutee read aloud sentences with errors in them. Asking questions about sentences with errors, instead of just pointing them out, can help the tutee realize the errors on their own and be more likely to recognize these errors in the future. The author also stressed the importance of not overwhelming the writer by offering too many suggestions.
Reaction to Chapter 3:
Chapter three explores techniques used in tutoring sessions that are geared toward making sessions better. To someone who has never tutored before, it's a little overwhelming, but at the same time it's comforting. It's overwhelming because the tutor in the sessions in the book seems to have a better grasp of writing and the writing process than I do. Some of the examples of what you might say to the tutee didn't even cross my mind. In it's own way however, this is comforting because I'm learning about these techniques and potential pitfalls before I gain any experience in tutoring. Knowing about problems that might arise, and how to handle them, or even just knowing how to start a session off well goes a long way to make the proposition of tutoring myself a little less intimidating.
Ah, my first blog, here goes...
Chapter one was the weaker of the first two chapters assigned for reading this weekend. Most of it was common sense. Mothers' words, such as "If you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all." could be used to summarize many of the sections. However, it was an introduction, short in length and light on subject material, but designed to pull readers into the book.
Chapter two contained much more useful information. The real world examples at the start of the chapter are useful in emphasizing later material. They also provide the reader with a glimpse into actual tutoring situations. Further discussed, is the importance of having an ability to discern at which stage a tutee is at in the writing process. Analyzing this process comprises most of the chapter. The writer also challenges the reader to reflect on their own experiences in this process, in addition to any classes or tutoring sessions the reader is currently or previously enrolled in.
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