Re:RE: An LD Student Who Needs a "Scribe"

[Elizabeth England-Kennedy <lizek@antioch-college.edu>]

I would like to respond to a few of these points. My comments are
interespersed.

Liz EnglandKennedy
Director, Academic Support Center
Antioch College
(937) 767-7331 x6223


On Mon, 4 Oct 1999, William Macauley wrote:

> I hope no one minds my jumping in here. I took this issue a step further last
> year. A woman with LDs was recommended to me as a writing tutor. I was
> shorthanded and it was the first few weeks of my new job. I thought that, since
> diversity is a good idea in terms of cultural/ethnic/racial backgrounds, it
> might be important in terms of LDs. 

It does help students with LD when their tutor has gone through
difficulties that are similar to their own. However, it is important to be
sure that the tutor has either overcome their own diffiulties or has other
skills. (ex: a person with dyscalcula who can tutor writing, a person with
dyslexia who is excellent at topic generation or organization, etc.). It
was a good idea you had in theory. However, as you discovered, one must be
extra careful in interviewing such candidates, in order to use them
efectively in ways where their strengths can shine (rather than their
weaknesses). I have been working with students with LD & ADD for about 11
years now & have interviewed many extensively for my various research
projects. Having tutors with these difficulties does not necessarily make
a center look more "disability friendly;" patience does. In fact, patence
was consistently cited as the #1 attraction of centers & profs by my
interviewees and other students. Ability to listen and caring about
students as people come next. 
 > 
> I hoped that her sensitivity to LD problems might make the writing center more
> user friendly for people with disabilities. I also thought it was a good idea
> because of the reputation of the senior faculty member who recommended her and
> her working as a stringer for a local paper. I looked over her writing sample,
> which was very well written, and decided to hire her without a formal interview
> (I had spoken to her on the phone twice).
> 
Reasonable on your part, given the information you had. FYI to the list,
most students with writing-related LD (and ADD  -- it sounds like this
student may have had both, which is not uncommon) need many rewrites for a
paper; some use proofreaders extensively. Thus these are good questions to
specifically ask. Also, as employers (even if the tutors are volunteers,
we are in the position of employers), it is wise for us to ask "What are
the specific impacts of your disability on reading, writing, and
organizing?" since these are essential components of the job.

> Much later, after a lot of struggle, two disasterous weeks of tutoring, and
> another two full months of training without actually tutoring (I gave her the
> option of watching other tutors until she felt like she could tutor again - and
> she took me up on it), I decided that she just couldn't handle it and I couldn't
> afford to wait. So, I had to fire her.
> 
Understandable. Still, this must have been hard on you.

> Her particular disorder calls for a great deal of structure; she wanted to make
> lists of the steps she could use in tutorials and almost always went for
> mechanical issues first (probably because they are very structured). When she
> developed a list, she never departed from it no matter what was going on in the
> session. I also found out later that the writing sample (a four-page essay on
> manic-depression) was something that she worked on for several months, and with
> a great deal of help from others. Eventually, I saw that she just couldn't "roll
> with the punches," so to speak, and that is one of the most important
> characteristics of a good tutor. I thought it was becoming cruel to keep her
> here, thinking that at some point she would be a tutor.

Her need for
structure is what makes me wonder whether she also had ADD (or OCD), since
this is a common feature of these combined conditions. (Of course, certain
combination of LD specifically also produce a similar effect.) In cases
where ADD *is a factor, difficulties in structuring and interpreting
social situations (especially non-verbal cues) are hard to recognize and
respond to.

> Still, I am not dissuaded from the idea that people with disabilities belong
> working as writing tutors, even if those disabilities call for significant
> revisions of our practice. I also still believe that students with LDs would be
> more likely to come to the writing center if there was someone here who could
> relate to their disability issues (Please don't think that I lump all
> disabilities in together or that I plan to hire tutors on the basis of
> particular disabilities). But, just as a Mexican tutor might help Puerto Rican
> or Cuban students feel more at ease, I thought the same might work with LDs.

This is a dangerous way to think in some ways. While it can be true that
another "Hispanic" face or voice may be helpful, it is also possible that
the mix could be problematic or disastrous, depending on the relative
social class of the stuents in question, relative level of educaiton,
time in the US, etc. Sometimes members of one "Hispanic" culture
negatively stigmatize members of certain other "Hispanic" cultures; this
is especially noticeable when the "hispanic" stuent claims or is
identified as having a mestizo heritage. Your thoughts and intentions are 
wonderful and your overall concern for such issues should translate into
many positive effects for your center. However, beware of homogenizing
cultures on the basis of who colonized their homelands historically or
the geogrphical region they came from. I say this not to preach or sound
overly intellectual, but because I have heard of problems that arose from 
such situations -- sometimes severe problems. Of course, on a listserv it 
is easy to "mispeak" oneself or to misconstrue what someone has said. If
this is simply a misinterpretation on my part, please take it as such.
However, I felt it was important to point this out.

> >
BTW- Are there archives for this listserv somewhere? > > Bill Macauley >