1st July 2010 9:00
By Blue Tutors
The idea of holding the space appears to be such a simple concept, and yet it’s something that so many tutors find it very difficult to do. Holding the space, in a very shallow way, is to not interrupt a student, or break their silence, but on a deeper level it’s about a tutor ensuring that the student can develop as much as possible, and not restrict that learning.
Why is this so difficult? Well the biggest temptation for most tutors is to speak in any situation; when a student doesn’t understand something, when they’re thinking about something, or when the tutor thinks that something isn’t clear. A tutor’s first refuge is often to elaborate, or interrupt, when it really shouldn’t be.
This is often a stumbling block for teachers who are starting to tutor, because when teaching a class you have to speak for most of time, because the class generally isn’t led by student responses; teachers needs to impose a structure on each lesson where the class know that their role is to listen, and the teacher knows that he/she can’t leave long silences in the hope that the whole class will be considering what has been said. However, this format doesn’t translate well into a private tuition lesson, and some teachers find it very difficult to control the urge to speak as soon as a student pauses to think.
Once a tutor understands the idea of holding the space, and accepts that it is the best thing for a student, the difficulty comes in finding the confidence and patience to effectively put the ideas into practice. It can be an uncomfortable situation to sit in silence with someone, and the tutor is likely to feel worried that it’s the tutor’s fault that the student hasn’t responded to a question immediately, and the tutor might also feel impatient, because they want to progress the lesson as quickly as possible. We’re not saying that these feelings are easy to overcome, but once the tutor is able to do so, the learning process immediately becomes so much clearer and faster for the student.