Tutoring

Since I quit my "real" job last September (well, officially, last July, but my last day of work was the end of September), I've been doing two things to make money-ish (I say "-ish" because I don't make more than $10/hour at either job, which hardly brings my "work" into the realm of making money). I work for the campus webmasters as an "accessibility consultant" (more about that excruciatingly boring job later), and I also tutor. Online. For people that I've never met before, know virtually nothing about -- not even their names -- for no longer than 40 minutes. I tutor in three areas -- English, essay writing, and career help.

It's an interesting job in many respects, although like most jobs, it has its share of pure, unmitigated frustration and moments of really quite exceptional anger, which sometimes even borders on rage. For the most part, however, it's fairly enjoyable, and certainly always a learning experience. It gives me an invaluable chance to peep into people's lives and psyches, if only for a minute, and reminds me of what it was like to be a teacher. (Yes, a long time ago, back in the dark days (okay, um, three-and-a-half years ago), I was a teacher for a brief-lived period of truly terrible time. I taught sophomore English. Never again.) When I was a teacher, it was shocking to me how intimately you become involved in your students' lives, even when you never meant to, and they never meant you to. The simplest English essay reveals scads about a person's character, things you'd never think would be revealed that way.

And it's the same with this job. Even though I never know the person's name with whom I'm working (and really, what's in a name?), only have the vaguest notion of their age (we're given the grade level of the student, so we can address them appropriately -- obviously you can't talk to a third-grader the way you would a college student, and that is definitely the age spectrum I encounter on a daily basis), and am given their state, so I have a general idea of their location, I find that by the end of the session -- even if the session only involves me reading their essay -- I know far more about them than they'd be comfortable with me knowing. I mean, who knew that spelling, punctuation, and diction could be so revealing? It's not just the topics on which they write, or the opinions they express, or the creative energy they put (or don't put) into their essays -- it's little things, like using one preposition for another, which gives their location identity far more successfully than the little "MA" or "CA" or "WA" that appears on their avatar. Their income, class, race -- yes! -- and other characteristics are often very easy to determine, too. It is truly much, much more interesting than I had thought possible.

When I began tutoring, I did it because I'm damn good at my subject (no, really, I am -- no false modesty here), and because I knew it would be pretty easy. I also thought it would probably be good practice for my future plans (which involve a Ph.D. and therefore teaching at some level). What I didn't realize was that it would challenge me, that I would find it fascinating, and that I would be deeply satisfied at the end of a tutoring session. That, more than anything, is what keeps me going back to it, and that is what makes me wish I could do that full-time, and bugger my "consultant" job. I've always, always, always felt that in order for any job that I do to be a worthwhile job, and a fulfilling job, it has to be a job that helps someone. It can't be a job that doesn't matter -- and this consultant job really doesn't matter, in the grand scheme of things. It's what kept me at my previous job for so long, and that truly was a situation from HELL. It was because I was doing something that mattered, that wasn't just pen-pushing. Of course, I have to like what I'm doing, but I've discovered that a not insignificant fraction of liking what I do is doing something that really helps someone.

The other fascinating part of it all is the fact that it really does challenge me. It makes me question -- almost minute-by-minute -- what it is I know about my subject, which is not something I had expected in the slightest. But when you have people coming to you with questions about things half-forgotten, and you have to be able to competently guide them through all the intricacies of language or essay-writing or grammar usage, you remember very, very quickly (and sometimes with the help of teh interweb). For example, I had a student come to me with questions about diagramming sentences. Now, I haven't diagrammed sentences since high school (which was over ten years ago . . . oh, GOD, I'm old), but I remember that I loved it then -- I seem to remember it being like a great puzzle. But this student put the questions up on the "board", and it immediately came flooding back. Of course, what came flooding back were the basic principles, not the more complex twists and turns, and naturally, that's what the student had questions about. So, can I just recommend, for anyone who wants a crash course in diagramming sentences, the web site http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/diagrams/diagrams.htm? It kinda saved my butt there.

And you know, it isn't enough to just know what you know. It's a whole different can of tomatoes (?) when you have to explain -- coherently and logically -- what you know to someone who doesn't give a toss or is totally confused and lost or wasn't paying attention in class and now has homework due and is panicking because they don't know what the hell they're supposed to be doing. And it's not just doing the work for them. It's explaining the concepts to them so they can do the work -- successfully -- and it's explaining the concepts to them in a way that even a toe-rag could understand (yeah, isn't that a great epithet?). It's breaking down your knowledge molecule by molecule, atom by atom, until you've found something they can understand, and then building it all back up again until they're in possession of some compound that they can use. It's almost intoxicating when it works.

Anyone, enough of the high-horse discourse. What I meant to say is that when I'm tutoring, I'm really discovering so much about people, and it never ceases to amaze me how people in a group infuriate me to degrees that it is difficult to express, but that individually they have the ability to touch me so deeply it brings tears to my eyes (yes, I've cried once or twice during a session). People are funny creatures, aren't they? Bloody buggers. . . .