Matt Parsons
During the past few months, I’ve started to fall into a routine each morning as I report to work as a professional writing assistant. I get up and bring my computer into the living room, saying hello to my girlfriend as she enters our shared office, which is now her second grade classroom. I set up in the living room of our apartment and nestle into my temporary (hopefully) workspace, logging on to see who has signed up to work with me that day. Some are familiar names but most are new students, either new to the school or just to the writing center. Because of the ongoing pandemic, those students who would prefer to meet in person are left with two options: accept comments on a paper without real time discussion or hold what to them is yet another web conference call.
It’s when I hold these video calls that I start to see the tremendous gaps in home situations for students. While the playing field is relatively evened out between students while they are on campus, the differences in living situations have become much more apparent as living rooms are turned into offices and bedrooms into study spaces. These effects are more pervasive now and show the major disparities among our students, both young and old.
I know that I am fortunate in my current situation; my significant other and I moved into a two-bedroom apartment just weeks before the pandemic started, one of those rooms becoming the aforementioned office. It is just the two of us, working in rooms on opposite ends of a hallway, able to do our jobs as comfortably as we can. The students I have met with over various web conference software, however, have wildly different situations. On many occasions, I have had to pause while the student moves to another room to get away from noise, be it a younger sibling playing, a parent yelling, or a spouse on a different call. Given other options, some of these students would love to be working on campus instead of from home for these very reasons/distractions. There’s not much that can be done about others sharing a living space, though many of us have had to deal with working on top of and around our families, roommates, and anyone else cohabitating. Students living with many other people under one roof likely did not anticipate or intend their home to become their workspace as well. It can be hard to find the peace and quiet needed to do things like write papers, complete assignments, and study in a chaotic household.
What’s more of an issue than space, however, is technology access. These writing sessions require what seems like basic necessities but to some students are either large investments or simply out of the question. Students need:
- A computer of fair enough quality to run software
- High speed internet that can support a video call online
- Word processing software (not every school gives all their students access)
- A microphone
- Understanding on how to use it all
- Patience (hard to come by these days)
For some, this is not an issue; students from even a middle-class background have had these things for years and are experienced enough to use it wisely. Disadvantaged students, however, must deal with the fact that they will either not be able to get the same tutoring and education quality as their peers or must add these items on as yet another costly expense for their education. It is a lose-lose situation for the population of students that already started further behind their more fortunate and privileged counterparts.
The group that I feel especially suffers from the pandemic is adult learners who have been in the workforce and decided to come back to school at what turned out to be a bad time. Those in a graduate program are in an even more challenging predicament. More often than not, these students have children of their own to worry about, along with their own work. The pandemic hasn’t just confounded life as a whole; the pandemic has complicated individual aspects of lives that overlap and cause entirely new problems that are unique to everyone. In the case of adult learners, their family and work lives have drastically changed and must be accommodated simultaneously in addition to their education. It’s not just one adjustment, but a slew of them. To anyone who found a way to successfully juggle those, please enlighten the rest of us on how you did it.
What’s a writing center to do for students in these disadvantaged scenarios? At the very least, we should practice being patient, calm, and accommodating. While a tutor on the other end of a call can’t make all of these complications and problems simply disappear, they can certainly help to lighten the load of students seeking guidance. Treating the symptoms is one thing, but finding a solution to the root cause is a different beast. Based on what we’ve seen and experienced, perhaps change can be made at an institution level. Private study rooms available for rent? Cost effective technology options? Wi-Fi hotspot installations? Whatever decisions are made, it’s important that they are proactive rather than reactive. The relatively level playing field of an open campus is not available, but that doesn’t mean that students can’t have access to all of the support that they need. The writing center itself will continue to react to these ongoing effects of the pandemic, but clearing these obstacles away to create pan-learner equity is still a sorely needed and achievable goal. There is a Russian saying that should apply to all of us during these uncertain times: Patience doesn’t always help, but impatience never does.
About the Author
Matt Parsons has worked as a professional writing assistant for the past 4 years, working at both Immaculata and Neumann universities in southeastern Pennsylvania. In addition to his work in the Writing Center, he has also presented at the Mid-Atlantic Writing Centers Association conference in Spring 2018 on student voice, and has taught both composition and public speaking classes for the Immaculata English and Communications departments.