[humanser] A not so good experience

[Jessica Sisco]

I had a simlar experience last week where someone insulted my inteligence because I'm blind. Actually, I have had several of these experiences. Next time, maybe you could take that opportunity to educate that person about blindness.
 
> Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:57:55 -0600
> To: humanser at nfbnet.org
> From: carisuekness at gmail.com
> Subject: [humanser] A not so good experience
> 
> Hi All,
> I had an experience today that I'm really upset about. Not only am I 
> upset about the experience itself, I'm upset about the way I handled 
> it. I bring this up because I have no doubt that I'll have to deal 
> with similar experiences in the future. I'm looking for some feedback 
> of more appropriate ways of handling this and some suggestions of 
> what I can do either now or in the future.
> I'm a free lance peer tutor at school. I tutor elementary and 
> intermediate algebra. I have a student who is returning to school and 
> she happens to be in the Human Service associate degree program as I 
> am. I worked with her for the second time today. My favorite spot 
> happened to be taken today so my student suggested we go to the 
> learning center lab. The learning center is for students who have 
> learning disabilities or who are getting their High school 
> equivalency. The learning center is staffed with several full time 
> teachers and some student tutors who have regular shifts there. I 
> know a hand full of the teachers and a few students working there and 
> more who use the service. I normally don't like to work there either 
> as a tutor or student being tutored because people around us may need 
> it quiet for test taking and the like. Today since my student 
> suggested we go there I decided to go along with it. I figured, 
> "after all, what's the worst thing that can happen?" We started 
> working and all was good until it was time to move on to the next 
> concept in the book. She has been out sick for the last few class 
> periods and has not seen this stuff yet. The way I've been working it 
> is to go over the examples in the book verbally with the student. 
> This way I'll know what we are doing and the student has another 
> chance to go over the concepts and express what they need help doing. 
> Apparently my student today didn't read completely what the book was 
> saying. I'm new to this tutoring thing and I'm not a 100% math 
> goddess. I'm only human. Well, because I didn't have a clear picture 
> about what we were doing I followed the directions and got confused 
> trying to relate back to how I learned the same stuff a year ago. My 
> student called over a learning center teacher. I felt like a total 
> idiot. I tried to express to this teacher that I'm a peer tutor and 
> that I've been working with this student for the past hour or so. The 
> student insisted on working with the teacher. I felt so belittled, 
> embarrassed, horrified and invalidated. I felt like she was going to 
> that teacher because I'm blind and don't know what I'm talking about. 
> The teacher decided to take over for a while and after that she 
> lingered. She finally went away for a while and then kept drifting 
> back. I was really offended both at the student and the teacher. I 
> made it clear that I didn't care for the way this session was going 
> and I did everything in my power to both take back my control and not 
> make a major scene. I did end up making a little scene and I never 
> felt completely back in control.
> I know I learned in the tutor training that the student tutor is one 
> of many resources offered and that the tutor should encourage the 
> students to use every resources necessary. I guess I didn't expect 
> that a student would call another teacher over. It would be different 
> if the teacher was the math teacher but it wasn't. I tried to back 
> peddle and explain why I reacted like I did but I don't think my 
> student really understood. So, I was unhappy with the way things 
> unfolded and I was unhappy with the way I handled myself. I'm sure I 
> made a total ass out of myself. I felt that the teacher was hanging 
> around because she didn't feel that I could adequately help my 
> student because I'm blind.
> I'm sure this will come up again with future coworkers, clients and 
> their families etc. How do I get over the "blindness knee jerk" 
> reaction? Are there specific ways I can assert myself without making 
> a total ass of myself and yet get my point and position across?
> Thanks for listening and in advance for any thoughts.
> Peace,
> Cari 
> 
> 
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