A tutor is a great example of how a job might influence how we teach. Having a tutor for math is different than your teacher for math, because your teacher is getting paid to teach you the math and that is their “job”, while the tutor may or may not be getting paid but that IS NOT their job. If you were a teacher getting paid to teach reading and writing you will most likely give it your all and not leave anything out when teaching these kids, while if you were a tutor not getting paid then you might half-ass your teaching methods with the students and then in turn you are taking away from their learning and would have a big influence on them by not giving them the necessary tools and information to advance. Also consider that with tutors, the subject content which they are tutoring on may not necessarily be their area of expertise. For example, the tutors which work through the student academic success center at UNE are other students who have simply excelled in certain courses, and have based basic tutor certification courses. This does not mean that those tutors are not knowledgeable about their subjects, but it certainly does not make them experts. This then directly illustrates how diverse any on individual’s knowledge of literacy is, based solely on where their information is coming from. Based on the level of mastery of the teacher, whether that teacher be a college professor, student peer, or a close relative or friend, an individual’s understanding of literacy concepts will take on many shapes and forms.
Think of a parent trying to help a child with school work, will they mimic what the child’s teacher taught them or will they attempt to teach the child in their own way, the way in which they learned how to read or write? In her article Sponsors of Literacy Deborah Brandt explains the role of literacy sponsors, defining the generic responsibilities that a sponsor typically undertakes, “Usually richer, more knowledgeable, and more entrenched than the sponsored, sponsors nonetheless enter a reciprocal relationship with those they underwrite. They lend their resources or credibility to the sponsored but also stand to gain benefits from their success” (Brandt, p. 557). In the Rising Cairn literacy narratives it is easy to see that sponsorship can be found in a multitude of individuals, the benefits which people like my aunt receive from being a sponsor come in the form of appreciation and satisfaction knowing that she has helped her nephew. Perhaps the goal here should be in differentiating between those who are sponsors, mothers, aunts, and they such, vs. those who are professionals that work through our economy to preserve literary knowledge, teachers, professors, etc.
Those who can afford to be taught by paid professionals will benefit far more greatly than those who may have relied solely on education from family members. “Throughout their lives, affluent people from high-caste racial groups have multiple and redundant contacts with powerful literacy sponsors as a routine part of their economic and political privileges” (Brandt, p. 559).
