last session with my tutees

was spent on fiddling about with practical session equipment and experiencing some fun phenomena e.g. motion-after-effect; wearing vision-distortion glasses and trying to decipher a message when you are presented two different messages simultaneously, one to each ear......of course the highlight was when they unhesitantly wired me to the skin-conductance equipment which supposedly detects changes in physiological states and is sometimes used as a 'lie-detector'.... asking me "did you enjoy being our tutor?/ will you take up another tutorial class next year?/are you giving tutorials for the money?/ were there any aspects of the course you didn't like?/ did you ever give someone a bad mark because you don't like them?/" etc. cheeky bunch.... (they have been teasing each other beforehand, trying to get some changes in the signal you see... so they were on a roll.... and feeling excited) anyways, i was really honest with them (and the signal was so flat: if that meant anything at all, and if the equipment is really reliable --- we don't know for sure)!

i suppose i have enjoyed being their tutor, even though i often begrudged the fact that i get so little support and help with preparing the tutorials, and essay-marking can be rather tiresome at times. i told them all that, and said that if i had done the tutoring for the money i wouldn't just have them as the only class, nor hesitated whether i ought to take up another tutorial class next year! and that for me the marking wasn't so much trying to put a number to what i think their capabilities were etc. i don't really believe in marks.... they kind of help to tell you how good you might be in certain things, but they don't say very much on their own. of course they serve as some form of indication of how well one's doing .... a lower mark often gives the impression that you have more areas to work on etc. i believe more in positive reinforcement! moreover the comments i make in their essays and reports are, to me, more important than the final mark i scribble down at the end of postively 'criticising' their hard work; criss-crossing sections and high-lighting redundancies and illogical interpretations. but i suppose the marks mean more to students trying to move on to the next level of their academic journey. i know that feeling. i just wanted them to know that a degree isn't merely about getting the marks! but i reckon most of them realise that.....

i must count myself lucky to have quite a nice bunch of tutees (i have heard horror stories about others') even though 17 is quite a lot of them ..... each idiosyncratic in ways..... some more shy than others.... and some with sharp observations. .... i think they all have the potential to go very far.... in fact all of us do, if we are all allowed to shine in our own special ways.

so will i take up another tutorial class? hmmm.... that is something i'll have to think about....the experience is definitely worthwhile and rewarding.... maybe a 3rd year class seminar session or tutorial might offer livelier discussions...... the first years are still in the transition of moving away from expecting to be spoon-fed to self-initiative learning....

gosh... it's made me realise how far i have travelled from being a first year eons ago.... i suppose it is true of what Richard Bach said in his book 'Illusions' (if i am not wrong); that you only realise what you do know by trying to teach, or what i think more appropriately phrased is, in sharing something you know (or have learnt) with others.

posted by ~overacuppa~ on Tuesday, 27 April, 2004 at 18:21 hrs