The Tutoring Book - California State University, Sacramento

It Is Ok. I Am an Expert.
125
Gordon Warnock
Spring 2009
Tutoring is an acquired skill. The time spent in class and studying articles such as this one will
not fully prepare you for what you are about to face. A significant portion of it can only be taught to you
by the tutee. One case that requires much practice is learning how to tutor someone who has a different
major than you.
Now before you think, “Well, maybe I’ll get lucky and avoid it,” you won’t. It’s going to happen.
It’s common to be afraid of the idea of tutoring someone in a subject that you are unfamiliar with. How
are you to know how to help this person? Because you just unwittingly signed up to tutor any student at
any level of any subject, does this mean you now must go out and do a crash research of everything?
The good news is that this is the writing center. It is not the chemistry center or the business
center. You don’t need even a general knowledge of the subject that the tutee brings to the session. You
are only responsible for helping them improve their writing. And the ability to articulate oneself through
the written word is universal across the curriculum.
With this in mind, you may still find yourself wanting to look up your scheduled tutees, maybe
check out their Facebook and do a bit of research on their subject prior to your session. Depending upon
your zest for knowledge, that could mean anything from spending hours in the library to looking up their
subject on Wikipedia. That is ok. Doing your best to familiarize yourself with their subject ahead of time
can open the door to swifter modes of communication. And I’m sure the tutee will appreciate your efforts.
But it is highly unlikely that the tutee will bring in something as basic as you were able to learn in
those few days prior to your session. In fact, they may not even show up for the session at all. Being a
tutor means being flexible and ready to adapt to a new situation at a moment’s notice. Your appointment
with the genetic botany major may be cancelled at the last minute and filled by a walk-in who needs help
on their psychology thesis. At that point, all the time you spent reading up on plant genetics becomes
wasted. It would’ve been better spent working on your own studies or drinking margaritas.
Don’t be afraid. This does not mean the situation is hopeless. Truth be told, there are cases in
which a complete ignorance about the subject at hand can actually help the dynamic of the session.
When a tutee signs up for a session, they are often unintentionally placed in a subordinate role
right out of the gate. As it is today, the writing center unfortunately has a stigma of being a place for “a
lower order of writers who need help getting on the same level as the rest of us.” New tutees come in with
the idea that they are somehow not good enough to do this alone and need the help of an authority on
writing. Not always, but often enough, they will first admit to themselves that they have a problem and
then show up with their tail between their legs and sheepishly ask for help.
Of course, this is not correct. But it is common. And this kind of dynamic makes for a very poor
session, one in which the tutee is quiet and reserved, possibly just handing over their paper and saying, “I
need you to fix this for me.”
Our duty as tutors is to use our entire toolbox of skills to combat this. In this case, we will do so
by embracing our lack of knowledge. It is not the only way and should not be relied on as a fix-all, but it
definitely helps in certain situations.