Re: Unteachableness?

[Sara Kimball <skimball@uts.cc.utexas.edu>]

I'm not sure that even if everything were ideal, everyone should work in 
a writing center.  I've been very lucky in the people I've had on my 
staff over the past two and a half years, both the undergrads who have 
taken my training class and the grad students, who are assigned to the WC 
in their first year teaching, and are conscripts of a sort in their first 
year in the WC.  But the few people who just haven't worked 
out seem to have lacked interpersonal skills (or at least the ablity to 
imagine themselves in another's place) or they've not been able to 
relinquish control.  While you can insist on the importance of these  
things and help people develop in these areas, maybe there are some 
people who, for whatever reason, just don't get it, or who I can't teach, 
annyway.
Sara Kimball


> The problem, Jim, with this notion of "unteachable" that has drifted your 
> way is that it seems to blame the victim. In other words, it is not the 
> fault of the Center for providing inadequate training, or the university 
> for not allowing extensive training, or the government for not funding 
> more professional positions, or the global economy for pressuring 
> students to take on more than they can handle--no, it seems that the 
> tutor is 'unteachable" rather than the rest of the system is unworkable.
>