"Portrait of the Tutor as an Artist: Lessons No One Can Teach"

Author Steve Sherwood made some compelling points about tutoring as art. In fact, we teach tutors to be artisans, concerned mostly with "skill, rules, imitation, and service." We offer professional development workshops, checklists, articles, and occasional conferences to cement these lessons. Tutors need these lessons, and they're all we can offer, because we don't know how to teach "surprise, circumstance, improvisation, and flow."

The parallels to teaching writing are evident: We teach writers about thesis statements, topic sentences, organization, and support. We encourage writers to take risks, but we can't exactly tell them how. In some cases, we can model artistry--but just as jazz can't be successfully copied, neither can those inspired moments of writing and tutoring.

As I read the article, I was struck with the idea of letting go. Letting go is so hard to do, but we can't do our best work, we can't lose ourselves, until we do. So often, we feel we need to be in control, and to let go of that control is dangerous. But it can also lead to our most creative experiences.

Have you ever felt like an artist when tutoring? What led to this experience? Do you think there are ways to nurture artistry, even if we can't teach it directly?