10/2 Response

During my second observation with Clare, another peer tutor from a different section sat in on the session. It worked out perfectly because one of three of Clare's appointments cancelled and she suggested that myself and Tara, the other peer tutor, each take a student. We would help them with their assignment and when Clare felt the need to add in her suggestion, she would.

I took the first session, a young woman who needed help brainstorming for a paper on racism. We read the prompt together and she had to compose a five page paper discussing racism and use a theory to help support her claims. Her theory was Afrocentrism but she was unaware as to how to incorporate that theory into her paper. She told me that she knew racism was bad but that this theory was  positive but did not know how the two were related. I then reread the prompt aloud and explained to her that she was supposed to examine the idea of racism through the perspective of a person with an Afrocentric viewpoint. After asking her to explain the assignment and what information she had compiled already it was obvious that she not only had the wrong definition of Afrocentrism but she had yet to fully research the theory.  I asked her what she learned so far about Afrocentrism and she told me that it was a theory stating "African Americans thought they were superior to Whites."  It was challenging because I did not want to outrightly state her definition was incorrect although I knew it was. Another issue that I faced was trying not to use first person when referring to her theory. Because I identify as an African American woman, I didn't want to use the phrase "We as a people believe" because I did not want her to feel uncomfortable or that I was attacking her.  On the positive side, my Prior Knowledge helped me to alleviate the situation.

I have taken a number of African American studies courses at FSU and used that information to  sway the student to learning about Afrocentric theory in a way that was not imposing. "So we know that Afrocentric theory is the idea that African Americans value the community more than the individual and the basis of this theory is to reclaim the glorious past that was taken away from them during slavery." I tried inserting this definition multiple times throughout the session in the hopes that she would better understand what it meant to identity with Afrocentrism as a means to uplift an oppressed people and not overthrow the majority by utilizing ethnocentric values. After showing her my definition, Clare took the time to explain to the student a bit more in depth about Afrocentrism. Then the student read the two paragraphs that she has previously written. I read them aloud but since she was still mainly brainstorming her thoughts weren't coherent. I emphasized that since she still had more research to do, she should focus on the structure of her paper first. What was her thesis? What was going to be explained in each paragraph? Then I gave her a small list of groups and people like Marcus Garvey, Booker T. Washington, and the Black Panthers, so she could better understand Afrocentrism as less of an abstract idea but more as a concrete movement.

Although I was worried that I overwhelmed the student with information, after the session she said she felt a lot more comfortable about the topic. Overall, it was challenging and I definitely had a chance to encountered some of my personal fears of tutoring in the RWC. Clare told me that she was pleasantly surprised after the session and that I did very well. Hopefully the student comes back for help developing her paper!