Tutoring a Friend

No matter who you tutor, I believe it is important to go about the same process of creating a welcoming social environment for your tutee. This is so important in order to create an environment conducive to learning. If the tutee does not feel safe or comfortable enough to tell you what they do not understand or feel comfortable in, they may miss critical knowledge that could be given to help make their writing process or specific piece better. This would also create an environment that teaches people to associate getting help with a positive experience. It can often feel demeaning to seek help for things we are not good at, and often those trying to help may make us feel inadequate when someone just needs a productive teacher. If teachers and tutors frame the learning or teaching process as a new skill that was just the absence of information as opposed to stupidity, learners will respond more positively. As a tutee, it may be expected that you have already learned information. And if not, one may feel or be regarded as incompetent, when in reality, they have just not learned the skills to be successful. The way information is taught and the practice individuals get in learning skills, is not often evident in saying “I took a class” or “I participated in this activity.” Participating in an experience may not have prepared students with the skills they needed, so it is important for tutors to gain perspective of the experiences and mindsets of their tutees.

It can be difficult or beneficial to get help from a friend depending on the relationship you share. I think personality and bond are two crucial aspects that could make or break the experience of tutoring a friend. The reading talks about peer tutors at University of California Berkley bringing a closeness that creates a feeling of community, and how the author feels being too friendly can result in a negative experience. This is a perfect example how it would depend, because some tutees make take advantage of the kindness and support offered by a tutor, and some tutors may provide an experience that give answers rather than teaches the tutee and allows them to produce work themselves. This “friend” experience would involve wanting the tutee to do well in their assignment and maintaining a positive friend relationship above the actual well-being and self-created work of the tutee, often demonstrated in new or less substantial friendship bonds. This also involves a tutee who is looking to take advantage of this friend and is willing to allow them to do the assignment for them, probably thinking, “this is what’s supposed to happen,” or “I’m not good at this, I couldn’t do it myself and get a good grade.” This personality or decision may mean this persona specifically should avoid being tutored by friend because they cannot responsibly do so. The article mentions this saying friendship could get in the way of honest discourse. The article calls tutors who do not want to help their friends beaus they they may be afraid to be truthful, avoiders.

The article also offers examples of positive experiences that come out of tutoring friends. They comment on how understanding a person’s body language, and because the tutees were comfortable voicing opinions, the tutor was better able to adjust their teaching strategy to fit that friend. Using previously established methods of communication can be extremely worthwhile and provide a leg up for friends of tutors. This is definitely true as long as the bond in the relationship allows for complete honesty and the personalities of the two people would not cause the tutee to take advantage of the tutor. I have had a lot of success having papers reviewed by my best friend from home and from childhood, whom I have known since kindergarten. We often read each others’s assignments, resumes, cover letters or emails. I think the opinion of a friend whom I trust, whose education and abilities I have seen demonstrated, and who knows my life history and brain is a wonderful resource. It is almost like having a fresh set of eyes that are almost my own to look over my assignments. We have no problem being entirely honest with each other, which is fueled by the fact that she is essentially as permanent as a sibling. In this way you could receive personal comments from peers who know you, which could help you because their previous incite could allow them to help you in ways not expressed as lacking in a tutoring session.

Each person responds differently to being both a tutor or a tutee to a friend. It is important to encourage peer help to bring a level of understanding that can only occur between two people in the same boat. It is also important however, that before you enter either of these situations, that you think critically about you and your friend’s abilities to provide productive and meaningful criticism in a way that would not burden your friendship.