Hiring New Tutors
This week I have been interviewing for two new tutor positions to work as assistants in the classroom. My wonderful dream team of Brett, Rashid, Carlos, and Martin has begun to disperse. Brett is off to a minimum facility, Rashid has accepted a higher paying job in the welding shop, and Martin will be getting out again in December. So with a sad and somewhat weary heart, I’m again looking to build a new team of classroom helpers.
This is always a difficult task. It’s hard to tell how someone will fit in with the fast-flying rhythms of my five daily classes. I need self-starters, but not people whose personalities will take up too much emotional space. I need tutors with good academic skills, but they will have to be patient enough and able to explain second-grade level work in the most clear and elementary way to students who may have auditory processing challenges. I need flexible, hardworking, creative tutors, but they must also be willing to decorate bulletin boards and help correct simple papers. It’s desirable to have a cultural and racial mix to match the students in my class, but those won’t be the deciding factors. They need to be inmates who are very trustworthy and who are not willing to bend the rules when pressured, though I get that they live here in the prison and already endure pressures everyday that are beyond my scope of understanding. I’ll need them to respect and trust me as well, and be my extra eyes and ears so that I can be aware of irregularities or shenanigans occurring in the classroom behind my back. They will need to be willing to help me in this way without considering it ratting. That the tutors speak some Spanish is helpful, being organized is important, and showing respect to all concerned is essential. I’ll spend more time with my four inmate tutors than I’ll spend with anyone else in my life these days, so I need to like being around them, and it won’t be workable if they don’t like being around me.
I’ve had tutors in the past who were control freaks—they were bad news; tutors who were manipulators—they didn’t last long; and tutors whose emotional needs made them annoying to be around. I try to pick well when I hire, but as any employer knows, what you get as a worker may not be what you initially saw during the hiring process.
It’s nice if tutor applicants have recommendations from teachers in other institutions where they may have tutored before coming to OSP, but prison education programs are different, and past employers’ teaching styles and expectations from their tutors may conflict with what I want from the tutors I need for my classroom. It is best to get people who are smart, quick, and eager to learn. That is what works for me.
Breaking in a new classroom tutor is a bit like getting to know a new roommate or sweetheart. At first you need to spend extra effort to learn and teach and tell each other what your needs and wants are. But after your communication cues become more familiar and the timing of when to chime in and when to hold your own counsel are known, things get a lot easier. Working with new tutors is like that—creating a new partnership. It will take time and energy to make things flow smoothly, which for me will mean time that I can’t give to the students or to my extensive lesson planning.
A couple times a year I try to offer a comprehensive twenty-hour general tutor training for any inmates in the prison who are interested in being listed in the tutor work pool. Despite the fact that some of the potential candidates will have already completed this course, much of their on-the-job training will come from one of my experienced current tutors or from me. In the fleeting moments I have to spare, I’ll be able to give them specific directions for the techniques I use when working with the ESL students or helping with a particular lesson. I know that in the heat of a busy day, I will slightly resent having to direct them in exactly what and how I really want them to do something. But I am capable of multitasking and will try to be a patient trainer, though my plate is already very full with attending to the students’ needs.
Already this week I have interviewed six young men who responded to our ad for a new tutor in the “Walled Street Journal.” Four were white, one Mexican American, and one very well-educated Black man from Gambia. During the week, each of them has spent time trying it out in the classroom so they can see what the tutor job really is, and I can see how they react to the need to be both spontaneous and flexible.
