Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Good Cop, Bad Cop
Nelson ends Chapter 4 by explaining that her tutors were allowed to use her, the director, as a bad cop, to help tutors direct their students' hostility or blame for being at the WTC and to set up tutors as allies, or good cops, to thier students. While in Nelson's eyes this had several advantages for tutors since they were having difficulty dealing with difficult students, I'm wondering what kind of consquences and disadvantages for both directors and tutors this might have. If I were a director, I'm not so sure that I would want to be the one whom students blamed.
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2 comments:
While I agree that students have to take responsibility for their own learning (especially by college!), I think that allowing a director to be somewhat of a scapegoat has good reason when it comes to policies. Otherwise, if students are blaming the tutor, it might be harder to form a close enough trust that progress can be made. It kind of reminds me of high school, when my mom told her I could always "blame" her in bad situations if I REALLY needed an out. It didn't happen often, but in drastic cases, it was nice.
If the director is interacting with students fairly frequently, I think that making her the scapegoat could be largely problematic. If not, it could be hugely helpful. I think it all depends on your situation. (Darn, I made that statement Jackie hates about how research is interesting but not cannot be applied widely...)
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