Tutoring Session 4 - Monday 10/30 make-up
Today I was scheduled to tutor a philosophy student who was working on a paper for a level 3000 class. Normally, tutors from this class are only supposed to tutor students from introductory writing classes, so this was going to be an interesting challenge for me. However, the student didn't show up. So instead, I read an excerpt from
The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring by Paula Gillespie and Neal Lerner. The section I read was titled "The Tutor Does Not - and Does - Have to be an Expert. I thought it was a rather fitting topic due to the circumstances. I was a little anxious about tutoring a student was taking an intermediate/advanced philosophy course when I myself am not a philosophy major. Reassuring me, the section stated that I needn't know anything about philosophy to be a good tutor for this student. Instead, I need to be receptive towards the student's goals, and have a good knowledge of the writing process. "If you know the subject well, that's wonderful, but if you don't, it's all right. You can usually still tell what kind of paper is appropriate, whether or not the arguments are well supported, if the organization is clear to you, and whether the audience is being addressed in an effective way".
Tutoring Session 3
I was by myself with the tutee for the most part during this tutoring session, because my partner and I were somehow assigned different tutee's on the same day. In a way, this was good for me, because having a partner gives you a crutch to lean on. Since I was by myself, I had to give it my all, and probably got a lot better at the whole process.
The student was working on a revision of a descriptive essay to hand in to her teacher. At first she told me that it was a basic review, so I began reading and helping her as we went along. After working out a few grammar issues that were prevalent in the introduction and elsewhere in the paper, the student mentioned another concern that her teacher had given her. Her instructor had wanted her to include in her introduction a dominant impression of where the paper was heading. In other words, her thesis needed some revision. After reading over more of the paper, it became apparent to me what the teacher was getting at in the paper. The student expressed a certain description of a place in the introduction, and then by the end of the paper the description of the area had changed because of events that took place in the body. However, no inclination of this was given. I tried my best to explain this concept to her, to which she seemed receptive. I also gave examples as to how she might change her work, but at the same time asserted that she herself was the one who had to change it. This actually seemed to work quite well. The examples that I gave to the student were obviously in my own written voice, which was completely different from her own. It was evident then, that these lines would be completely out of place if she didn't incorporate her own understanding of them and rewrite them in her own words.
We had a few minutes left after this, and I suggested we go over a few grammar issues that could be worked out quickly. One of the issues was about verb tense and its usage. The sentence that she used along with the word 'past' as opposed to 'passed' confused me as well. Since my partner's tutee hadn't shown up I asked her if she understood what was going on. She then went to do some research on it while we continued with the revision and came back a few minutes later with a better understanding to share with us. All in all, I felt that the session went well and was beneficial to the student. I hope she felt the same.
Reaction to "Letter from Birmingham Jail"
The first thing I noticed while I began reading this section, was that King was using a similar technique to the one that Stanton used. He was modeling his writing off of a significant work that influenced people in a previous time. The second thing I noticed was that how, even though these two pieces deal with political matters, there are deep religious and theological ties within them. Religion, morality, and the laws of nature seem to be a common theme among all the works included in the textbook. In essence, he was arguing the morality of the actions of citizens of the Untied States, specifically in the south, taken against African Americans at that time. He argued that morality was above the law, and that it is each person's responsibility to stand up for what he believed to be within his own moral code. "We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal"... It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. " I believe that Nietzsche would say that King held several Ubermensch-like qualities, in that he said he would rebel against societal moral codes to uphold his own, regardless of the circumstances.
Reaction to "Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions"
It is obvious from reading this passage, that Elizabeth Stanton was quite a witty writer. I think her use of the Declaration of Independence as a model for her argument was quite effective. By doing this she not only called attention to her writing, but she implies that her argument should be a fundamental part of the government. Her use of a quote from an influential scholar of law to tie her ideas to a fundamental truth was also impressive.
Reaction to the "Declaration of Independence"
I think it would be fair to say that every American high school student has read, or at least discussed, the Declaration of Independence at some point in their education. In it, Jefferson lists the reasons why the Colonies should be independent. He gives many grievances towards King George, who, in short summary, attempted to crush any form of government within the colonies that he himself did not remain sole dictator of. In a sense, our country has, though not as harshly, acted similarly towards other countries in the past and today. We seem to love spreading "The American Way" regardless of whether these countries want us there. We impose a form of government on them that may be foreign to them and expect them to abide by it. On the flip side, it could be said that we are replaying out our own revolution again and again. We choose these countries that we see as ourselves during the American Revolution and rush to their aid. From this point of view, it would seem only natural that we would establish a similar way of doing things for these countries. Of whether or not our aid ultimately benefits the people, I am uncertain. However, I find it interesting that a country that prides itself on its independence feels the need to "fix" so many of the "less fortunate" countries of the world. The rest of this debate becomes more about the morality of the situation. Is it right to help? Is it right to do nothing? Is it right to force our help? Is it right to refuse aid to those who need it?
Tutoring Session 2
I could not attend this tutoring session due to transportation issues. So instead I surfed the web for interesting tips or articles about tutoring. I came upon this website
http://www.studygs.net/tutoring.htm during my search which offered a list of some useful tips and strategies for tutoring. At the top, the first thing they suggest is that tutors don't provide answers. Instead they are a sort of medium through which students can get extra help to find their own answers. Tutors are there to provide "expertise, experience, and encouragement". This directly reflects the things we discussed in class as well as the previous tutoring experience I have had. In my little experience as a tutor, I found it was easy to promote encouragement, as the two students I had experiences with were both eager to receive help. I also noticed, through watching and trying it myself, that merely identifying a problem to a student can be of great help.
Some of the strategies listed seemed to be for tutoring a single student over the long term, but some of them can be applied to our situation in this class. The first suggestion is to receive training, of which we have through taking this course. They also suggested creating a set of rules to follow that is agreeable to the student, however in our situation the writing center has already provided most of those rules for us. For example, making the disclaimer at the beginning of sessions that the writing center does not edit papers. The site mentions knowing your own strengths as an asset to tutoring. This can serve at least two purposes. Knowing what you can bring to the table, so to speak, obviously means that you can more effectively help students with things you excel at. However, it also allows you to judge for what situations you may need to seek outside help. Analyzing yourself in this way not only allows you to help others better, but helps you to better yourself as well.
Another particular point of interest was some of the tips given for building trust in the tutoring session. It said that you should remain open and honest. This doesn't imply that a tutor should be overly critical or mean, but that if you do not understand something do not hesitate to ask. Also remember that the tutor isn't there to impress the student but to help them. If there is a concept that you do not understand, don't be afraid to let them know and then perhaps look it up together to figure things out. It also recommended that if a situation arises where the chemistry between you and the student just isn't right, for whatever reason, it is okay to recommend that they talk to a different tutor. Of course, it is imperative to be polite about the situation, but if the problem is big enough to hinder the tutor's ability to help, then the whole tutoring session becomes a waste of time.
Reaction to "Total Domination" and 1984
I'm writing these reactions together, even though they are two separate blogs because I feel that the two readings are closely linked. Arendt talks about totalitarianism by looking at concentration and extermination camps as examples. She says that they are the only true experiments for a totalitarian society. She talks about "The Big Lie", the idea that if you tell people a lie, and if it is big enough, many people will believe in it regardless of whether or not it uses common sense. This can be seen readily enough in Orwell's 1984. The main character of the book works in a place where they essentially re-write history. They take out and change quotes said by Big Brother, or events that took place and replace it with whatever the current lie is, and the citizens readily believed it. Although in the context of the book, they didn't really have much of a choice. Big Brother, who is of course never wrong, could be at war with country A and always has been, and then next week Big Brother could be at war with country B, but then again, they always have been haven't they?
Ardent also says that terror is the essence of totalitarian states, and that it controls not only the opposition but everyone in the society. If we apply this to 1984, we may gain some insight into why Big Brother is always at war with one country or another. There are bombs constantly going off around certain parts of the city, whether an actual war is going on or not. This creates an atmosphere that lends people to need a government more than ever.How else will they be protected? If it weren't for Big Brother, they would probably have been taken over by country A a long time ago, no?
Tutoring Session 1The student who came in today was concerned with revising an essay that he had previously turned in. It was an approximately 700 word descriptive essay that discussed something that was important in the students life. It seemed the student was having more trouble with sentence level structures rather than organization. With this in mind, we began to help him weed out his awkward sentences, often having him read them outloud. There were certain segments of the paper that we suggested be completely changed to improve clarification and cohesiveness of the sentences. The student was very receptive to our help, and seemed to be understanding the points we were making. I feel the session was beneficial to his revision.I was particularly surprised how quickly the session ended, and how little it seemed that we could accomplish in the time we were given. The student only had half an hour, so the session began at 2:00 and ended promptly at 2:30. Even so, I feel the start we gave him was definitely beneficial.One final point I would like to make, is that the tutoring 'training', so to speak, we received helped a lot. We made sure that it was the student doing his own work, which actually seemed to help encourage his own thought process based on our suggestions. Additionally, he had a lot of awkward sentences, that when read aloud, it became apparent to him why they were awkward. It also helped us get the session underway quickly. We began by asking what the assignment was about, what he needed help with, we read the paper and then went straight into helping the student.
Reaction to "Morality as Anti-Nature"
To say that Nietzsche dislikes the church would be a total understatement. I have a few issues with his views on religion. He seems obsessed with the idea that religion does nothing but to tell you exactly how to live. What to do and what not do, what to feel guilty about and what not to feel guilty about, and so on and so forth. To some degree this may be true, but I have always thought, and perhaps my own views are more radical than I think, that religion was more of a set of guidelines to follow when people fall of the beaten path. I do not believe that at every passing moment of every passing day, one must constantly be thinking about how they can justify themselves to God. However, in times of great stress or confusion, religion may be turned to to find answers that one may be seeking. It should then be taken upon the individual to learn from religion what it can, or cannot, teach them. If one feels some emptiness in their life, who is to tell them that filling it with religion is wrong? Who is to tell them that it is right? The church has been wrong in the past. Many times over and many times more I'm sure, but it was built by people. Anything built by people is prone to err. As such, can any of these questions truly be answered? I don't know, but it's starting to hurt my head. Therefore, I'm going to bed now.
Reaction to "Morality and Religion"
One of the concepts Murdoch discusses in this excerpt, is that there can be no good behavior without the existence of evil. If the world evolved into this world where the only ideals of good moral behavior existed, evil would dissolve. However, if evil dissolves, so too dissolves good. If every man is good, being called good loses its meaning. Can such a world exist, or must there always be some balance struck for comparison. For example, in such a world would there be a distinction between people who are "less good" and "more good", or would such a distinction defeat the entire purpose of attaining such a world?
Reaction to "The Aim of Man"
Aristotle discusses what the highest good for man is in his "The Aim of Man". He places great emphasis on the state, going so far as to say that the highest good for man is likely found in statecraft. He says that all other sciences and arts are subordinate to statecraft, because it is the state that determines what sciences are to be studied, by whom, and up to what point. Additionally, the state helps regulate its citizens behavior. Because it encompasses all of these things, Aristotle argues that the aim of the state is "nobler and more divine" than the aims of any of these things individually. In a sense, this is reflected in political ideologies today. America often urges all able bodied persons to vote.
Reaction to "The Personal and Collective Unconscious"
Jung asserts the idea that the unconscious is made up of more than just personal experience. He says that it includes inherited thought patterns in the form of categories or archetypes. Through this idea, he expresses that the longing for a God could be a passion from our darkest, instinctual nature. I assume then, that he would attribute the phenomenon of religion to this idea. It could then be argued that this passion is one of many causes of such fervent religious debates that have occurred throughout history. Whether or not his ideas are true, I am not certain. They seem as though they would be hard to prove or disprove. Either way, it is still an interesting proposal.
Tutoring Session Preview
My partner and I had our tutoring session sit-in today. The first thing that I noticed, is that the writing center has a nice relaxing feel to it. We only got to sit-in for about half an hour, but the session was very interesting. After introductions were finished, the tutor gave a disclaimer that she had to leave around three o'clock ( the tutee was fifteen minutes late) but that she would try to help as much as possible in the given time. The tutor then asked what the assignment was about and what the student thought she needed help with. Even the tutee was unclear exactly what the assignment was, often repeating phrases similar to "He (her teacher) told us to just write anything." The tutor began asking increasingly specific questions regarding the assignment to get some idea where to begin. While the goals of assignment remained slightly ambiguous throughout the session, the goals of the student slowly started to take shape. She had most of her ideas written down, but was having trouble piecing them into a cohesive work. So the tutor began giving her ideas on how to reorganize her first three paragraphs. She told the student that perhaps if we could get the beginning organized and starting to flow, then the rest of it would follow. Ideas were bounced around, even to my partner and I, who got to share our own thoughts on the subject, until it was time to leave. The student we worked with was rather eager for help and I think overall the session went well. My partner and I both left a little before the session ended, so I cannot comment on how the session finished.
Reaction to "Brave New World" chapters 1 & 2 and the forward
The beginning of Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" sets up a rather strange new world for the reader. It's a place in which society is bred in a lab by an elite, or alpha class. The embryos are created from one ova and duplicated through a process that allows for many twins to be created from one embryo. It is then decided which caste of the social system they will be placed in, and from there they are conditioned to perform certain functions in society. The lowest caste was trained to dislike books and nature, while the second to highest caste was trained to admire the alpha class and to think poorly of classes below them. One of the more shocking and memorable excerpts from these two chapters, involved giving babies of a low class caste an electric shock when they began to enjoy images of books and flowers. What made this scene even more disturbing, was the pride the Director of the facility took in showing off this experiment.
Reaction to "Nonmoral Nature"
The ichneumon fly was aptly named, because it sounds 'icky'. The thought of being paralyzed and eaten away from the inside is quite disturbing. It is often said that nature is a 'cruel mistress', and Gould provides some interesting perspective. According to him, nature is just that, nature. There are no hidden meanings behind the actions or inactions of plants and animals. To some degree, I concur. Perhaps it is humans that provide meaning where there is none, or perhaps we cannot fathom a true meaning and substitute one that suits our own needs. In any case, I particularly liked the way the piece ended with a particularly profound quote.
Reaction to "Natural Selection"
At this stage of college education, I doubt that anyone is completely new to Darwin's theory of natural selection. Still, it made for an interesting piece of writing. It's ironic that a man trained to be a minister would develop a theory that would cause such an uproar in the religious community. People still debate this topic today. Not too long ago, there was a group of people trying to get approval to add teaching of how Darwinism and religion can go hand in hand to school curriculums. However, I don't remember the outcome or details of the case.
