Jacqueline Cavazos
English 12D

Learning From the Students that we can't Help

This article titled, Apprenticed to Failure: Learning from the Student’s we can’t Help, by Steve Sherwood was all about learning and growing as a tutor. Sometimes in the Writing Center we will have a student come in that we truly cannot help. In these situations, we don’t want to the student to leave with a negative view of the Writing Center, but rather we want them to know that there may be other places where they can get help. We want to direct students to all the different types of resources that we have on campus to best fit their need.  In another situation, maybe we weren’t the best tutor to help the student. In this case, we can always refer the student to another tutor. That’s why the Writing Center employs so many tutors, because we all have different experiences and knowledge that can help the right student. In the past, I’ve had students come in who will specifically ask for a certain tutor to help them. It doesn’t mean that they don’t like us, it just means that they prefer a certain tutor’s teaching style. This article was definitely a good read, and just because we can’t always help a student it doesn’t mean that we did something wrong.