by Benjamin Dueck
Preface: Both tutors and tutees have the tendency to fall into archetypal roles during consultations. These roles are not always consciously played, often existing because of the background functioning of self-perpetuating systems and institutions. These systems have the unfortunate tendency to inhibit a writing center’s ability to be inclusive and often divide tutors and tutees on the intersecting lines of class, gender, and racial privilege. These roles are not always within our control and are inevitable realities of the society we live in. Even though we can’t avoid these roles entirely, we CAN become consciously aware of the power they hold. The practices of mindfulness, meditation, and non-attachment, discussed below, can help us see these roles for what they are, providing a broader perspective that we can use to make our writing centers more inclusive spaces.
If you have any experience reading the huge amount of theoretical writing about tutoring, you’ve probably noticed a recurring pattern. As tutors we are taught to let writers be in charge, to ask generative questions, and above all, not to edit! It seems like we are all supposed to be playing the same character; the neutral assistant who is only there to help, not to dominate, instruct, or interfere. Sound familiar? We all encounter some version of this model when we learn to tutor, but as we all know, intellectual frameworks don’t do much for us when living in the day to day. No two tutoring sessions are exactly the same and no piece of theory can fully encapsulate the sheer variety of situations that tutors are exposed to daily.
My first year on the job has immersed me in an incredibly supportive community that continues to inspire me every day. Outside of tutoring and academics, a fundamental part of my life revolves around mindfulness, meditation, and spirituality. I was introduced to these ideas at a young age by my father who exposed me to the works of great mystical thinkers like Ram Dass, Sri Aurobindo, and Mira Alfassa. When I started reading theoretical papers as part of my tutoring training, I noticed parallels to the mindfulness practices I grew up with. Concepts like deep listening, improvisation, and openness all connected back to the same fundamental ideas.
This legacy of ancient wisdom is based on thousands of years of practice and introspection. But despite this historical vastness, there is a central point that all of this knowledge revolves around: the concept of awareness. Awareness is the undoubtable reality of being and the ground on which existence itself occurs. It is simply the here and now. To put this in another way, you as an individual can doubt everything in the world. You can doubt your feelings (you may be crazy), your logic (you may be wrong) and even your senses (you may be hallucinating). But even in the most intense doubt, you remain aware of the fact that you are doubting. There is an ‘inner witness’ that observes everything that happens both positive and negative without judgment. This is our consciousness. Our consciousness does not move, shift, or disappear no matter what happens in our life. It is eternally present in a timeless moment.
All meditation practice focuses on cultivating this inner witness in some way. Whether through breath control, yoga postures, or just sitting in silence, it all comes back to the eternal awareness that exists in the present moment. By identifying with this awareness rather than our thoughts and emotions, we can lessen their hold on us and achieve an inner balance that energizes and improves every aspect of our lives.
There is an old saying “the mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master.” But before you dismiss it as new age hippy rambling, I’ll attempt to connect it to the world of tutoring! When we are helping writers with their assignments, we unconsciously let our minds get in the way, especially when dealing with negativity and criticism. When a writer doesn’t seem to be responding to our advice, or flat out rejects it entirely, our first instinct is to take this criticism personally. We start analyzing our every word and strengthen the illusion of separateness that exists between us. If we identify with our negative feelings in difficult moments like these, we create an inner doubt that distracts us from what is actually happening in the present.
Learning how do detach ourselves from the criticism of others without pushing or pulling helps us to stay in the flow of the moment ‘as it is’ without being preoccupied with our egos. But how does this actually help us tutor? The truth is, when we operate on pure, open, intuition we are capable of incredible things. By cultivating a sense of interior emptiness, we find that all of our ideas, thoughts, and advice still come to us clear as day. Inspiration strikes in the interim state between the places we’ve ascribed meaning; it falls in between the gaps. It is in these moments where we have our greatest insights: when we are in the shower, falling asleep at night, or riding the bus in the morning. By making awareness our default setting while tutoring, we can use it to make our sessions better. We may craft a new idea for a sentence, remember the perfect question to ask, or reveal a new connection for a thesis statement.
There are some simple techniques that anyone can try that will help to achieve this empty, insightful state. One of the most effective and well known is breath awareness. Simply following the breath as it flows in and out has a profoundly tranquil grounding effect that can put any situation into perspective. Another useful technique is the repetition of a mantra, like ‘let it be’ or ‘I Am’. These techniques help us slow down our minds, creating a calmness that is conducive to extreme novelty.
There are no esoteric secrets or abstract concepts to the idea of mindfulness; for all that it is is remembering the present moment. The advantages of an empty mind are accessible to every one of us. When we incorporate mindfulness in the writing center, we will see our sessions become more creative, more open, and more productive. Even if it all sounds useless, give it a shot. Sometimes the most profound strategies are strikingly simple.
Benjamin Dueck is a writing tutor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada. In addition to tutoring, he is working on a B.A. in the field of rhetoric, communications, and philosophy. His academic work explores the roles that interior experience, consciousness, and spirituality play in the age of digital information. Through work in the writing center, he hopes to share some of these ideas with the larger student body and synthesize them with the tutoring process.