Blind Spots and "Banking Education": What Tutors Can Do to Keep Students from Glaring at Their Teachers

Issue #1: Blind Spots

                When professors give writing assignments, these assignments might have blind spots. A blind spot is a gap on an assignment, a crack where students can fall through. One example used by the featured article showcases a gay student, Joseph, required to choose magazine ads displaying people of the opposite sex. His choices had to be sexually attractive to him. Joseph confirmed that the opposite sex is not attractive to him.

Solution: Transcend Tutoring to Advocacy

                To address blind spots, the article suggests that writing tutors must assume the role of advocate. In Joseph’s case, his tutor (or their supervisor with the tutor’s assistance) contacted the professor and asked if the assignments could be altered to remove the blind spot. The professor, after apologizing for the gap, made that part of the assignment more precise and inclusive.

Issue #2: The “Banking Education” Concept

                “Banking Education” is a term coined by Paulo Freire, describing that knowledge is handed down to people without it by people who possess it. An illustration of this theory can look like this:

Faculty à Student

                Students may experience this concept through the stereotype that the professor is always right. In Joseph’s experience above, he struggled with his assignment’s blind spot and came to the writing center for advice. One possibility of why Joseph became stuck on the magazine ad part of the assignment could be because of fear, that any answer or action he took contrary to his professor’s desires would anger his professor and earn him a consequence. His professor holds the knowledge after all, and is always right.

Solution: Reframe the Stereotype

                To combat banking education, tutors must first recognize that they do not want to create hostility between students and their professors, and between the writing center and the professors. Therefore, instead of siding with a party, simply reframe the stereotype of “the professor is always right” to “the professor is the audience”! By framing professors as audiences assignments are tailored to, students may be able to see their professors not as someone to fear, but as someone the students, with their own ingenuity, can provide a satisfying product to. This reframing of the stereotype gives students a sense of agency, like they have knowledge to give.

This article's link, titled "Empathetic Tutoring in the Third Space": https://writinglabnewsletter.org/archives/v36/36.9-10.pdf

Foreword

The article's main concern is empathy, but for this post, I chose to cover blind spots and banking education, also discussed by the article.  I did so in the hopes that serving the techniques piecemeal would make learning more efficient for us at MSU Denver’s Writing Center.

While I wrote this post, I enjoyed dissecting the articles into smaller components. It made trying to transmit a giant mess of information a whole lot simpler and easier. What thoughts can you offer on this technique? What thoughts do you have on anything discussed above? Express them in the comments!

For the next post, I'm thinking of expanding on this article and relaying the empathy aspect. See you then!