Bree Johnson
1 article-
Take a Breath: Building an Emotionally Mindful Writing Center Through Mindfulness Education for Tutors ↗
Abstract
Emotions impact all aspects of tutoring work, including sessions with clients, tutor responsibilities, and tutoring philosophies. While emotions can make tutoring feel difficult, mindfulness strategies can be taught to tutors so they feel equipped to manage clients’ and their own emotions. While plenty of research on mindfulness theories exists, few studies integrate mindfulness into tutor education and examine the impact of mindfulness on tutoring. My study observes how teaching mindfulness strategies can support the emotional labor of tutoring and build emotional intelligence in tutors over time. I developed an emotional mindfulness training workshop for writing center tutors using mindfulness strategies proposed by scholars in writing center studies. I facilitated a training workshop with UNC Charlotte Writing Resources Center (WRC) tutors during the WRC tutor education course for new tutors and a WRC staff meeting for veteran tutors. Then, I followed the impact of this training on tutoring practices by collecting written journal responses from six tutors. In these journal responses, tutors wrote about client emotions, tutor emotions, and mindfulness strategies they used. Tutors use and evolve the mindfulness strategies outlined in the training to benefit both clients and themselves, while also using mindfulness strategies to reflect upon tutoring practices. As one of the first writing center studies that analyzes the impact of mindfulness training, my research offers a reference to writing center administrators and tutors on the positive effects of implementing mindfulness into regular tutoring practices.