Yesterday we went to the Boys and Girls club for a second round of tutoring. Michael and I had tutored a girl last time together, and though it went fairly well, the girl was not very invested in what we were saying or in the project in general. Though it was not a failure, it was not a rousing success either, and I remember leaving feeling a bit let down. I suppose I expected to go in and really feel like I was helping someone, whereas when we left I didn't really know what we had done to bring this girl any closer to finishing her story or helping her be a better writer.
When we returned on Monday, I didn't know what exactly to expect, but I did not expect what happened. It turned out that the girl we worked with before was no longer with the program, and we were assigned to another girl who also had not completed her interview. This is yet another example of the disparities between theory and practice, between the class room and the "real world" - nothing ever plays out how you think it will. At first I was a little worried, as we had spent all of last time forming a bond with this girl and now we had to start all over again. Yet it was a wonderful experience all in all. The new girl we tutored was very talkative and, more importantly, seemed genuinely excited about the project. She had many ideas as to what she wanted to do, and she seemed interested in our descriptions of what a digital story is, how we conducted our interviews, and our lives as college students in general. We helped her formulate her own questions for her interview as she had yet to receive the prewritten questions that they handed to every student. This ended up being a wonderful exercise for us to help her with, because we were able to discuss what makes a good story, what makes her want to interview her grandmother, and it helped her focus on what exactly she wanted to convey at the end of the project. The fact that she was able to focus her questions and see the story as having a goal, a message, rather than the ramblings of some older person, was really exciting, and it was even more exciting to help her get to that point.
What's the lesson I've learned? First of all, never expect things to turn out the way you planned, especially in hard-to-control situations. Secondly, no effort or time invested in a tutoring is lost or wasted. Thirdly, never underestimate the student you're working with, because they will surprise you!
It's great that everything ended up working out for you. You make a good point that even as you worried about not reaching your first student in the way you had planned, both parties walk away having learned something from the experience. In the end, maybe this is the real goal?
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