Tutoring as Leadership Experience for First-Generation Writing Tutors

Amanda Pickett

Writing center professionals talk a lot about first-generation challenges and pitfall within higher educational systems such as those that Corinne R. Merrit describes in “First-Generation College Students: Then and Now.” But we have yet to focus on the vast potential of first-generation college student peer consultants within writing centers. In writing centers, first-generation college students who often don’t feel like leaders can paradoxically find ideal leadership experiences through peer tutoring—experiences that help them influence their community, their peers, and their own futures.

From personal experiences, I know that first-generation college students don’t readily feel like they can be effective leaders. Like Merrit, a first-generation student who states that she “felt limited to those professions suitable for the working class in spite of numerous role models” (47), I felt misplaced in academia from the moment of my arrival on campus when I attended orientation. I remember feeling more concerned about the fact that I was missing a day of work than forcing enthusiasm that mirrored that of students and staff. I wasn’t there to chase a career I was passionate about; I was groping for future stability, and my experience seemed so different from that of an orientation leader who spoke about her experience as the second in her family to attend college, a double-major, and a leader in six different campus organizations. She lived and breathed leadership and spoke with confidence. By contrast, I was a low-income student fresh out of community college and working three jobs, and I hardly had the confidence to ask a question at orientation let alone to be an activist on campus. Her speech was meant to inspire, but for me, it did the opposite. I left orientation early that day with the sinking feeling that I would never be the kind of leader that she was.

How do first-generation college students find leadership opportunities such as those that writing centers provide when they feel that they are destined to fail or fade into the background? That day at orientation, I felt not only underrepresented but unseen and unacknowledged. And first-generation students often feel suffocated by the weight of their own inexperience and ignorance regarding the norms of the academic world. Regardless of the realities of demographics, first-generation students feel underrepresented in education. We feel insecurities about our identities and our academic work. We feel like we can’t meet expectations posed by society. And as a result, to appropriate Claude Steele’s argument from Whistling Vivaldi, we struggle with a sort of stereotype threat that inhibits our experiences in academic contexts (4). Our ideas about ourselves make us feel like we’re invisible and oppress us.

Tutoring in a writing center has potential to create a transformative experience for first-generation college students in that it provides an opportunity for leadership of a collaborative kind. Leading in a writing center means making others feel valued as so many first-generation college students want to feel valued. And because I had the chance to give writers something I so needed as a student, becoming a tutor changed everything for me. Originally, I sought the position for the sake of my resume. I needed more experience to pursue a secure job in the future but I was uneasy about taking the position. I was a minority, underrepresented as the lone first-generation student among many accomplished normal peer tutors and I frequently doubted my ability to do the job. What could I offer students that they didn’t already know? The truth was that I and all first-generation students have everything to offer. I learned through tutoring fellow students that every struggle, every success, and every moment of my education not only meant something but was valuable to the students who sought my help. When students felt like they had nothing to offer or were incapable or even just confused, I was able to draw on my identity and my experience with those exact same feelings or similar assignments. By just having a conversation and sharing my understanding, the students I worked with went from being stressed and overwhelmed to confident and encourages to reach higher. I supported them in their success, and in doing so I learned how to become a collaborative kind of leader.

As Paulo Freire reasons “an oppressor society” cannot produce a liberatory education (264). I did not learn to make a difference by becoming something I was not but rather by expressing who I am. I was able to exact a change in student writing and self-confidence by using my insecurities and my history. I made a difference to writers and how they defined by using my insecurities and my history. I made a difference to writers and how they defined their education. To be that person for someone else and to inspire student who felt as I always had, underrepresented and unimportant, was liberating for me. My education was no longer about what I was ill-equipped to do but rather what profound things I could do for others and for myself. I learned that first-generation college students are poised to make the biggest impacts of all. The greatest hurtle for us is daring to be seen.

As a tutor today, my role seems confined to a single-room Writing Center which is practically the length of its ten tables nestled in a row. There, I am one among many, which is how I often used to feel. But by supporting students and fostering their confidence in their work, my reach goes beyond the Writing Center. I feel seen and represented by helping others. And I see my own potential and feel eager to keep learning so that I may continue to make a difference to others who feel invisible.

Works Cited

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.

Merritt, Corrine R. “First-Generation College Students: Then and Now.” Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, vol. 6, no. 1, 2008, pp. 45-51.

Steele, Claude. Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotype’s Affect Us and What We Can Do. W.W. Norton & Company, 2011.

About the Author

Amanda Pickett is graduating from Penn State Abington with a BA in English and a Minor in Writing in May 2020.  At Penn State Abington, she has worked as a Writing Fellow, a Center for Student Achievement Writing Consultant, and a Writing Program Directed Self-Placement Assistant.