a p.s. to the last entry on 'too much - too little: frustration'

As a p.s. to what I wrote yesterday concerning students that I tutor and the obvious resistance toward the subject matter, I noticed it has sometimes helped to state that I'm spending this one and a half hour period of time with the person no matter what and he can tell me how he wants to approach the subject we're concerned with - and in that allowing him to direct himself through the lesson and the material. I just lean back in the chair and breathe and let him consider how he wants to take it from 'Here'. This has helped me take myself out of the 'presenter-mode' of laying everything out in front of him - which he had simply decided not to engage in and thus reject or resist.

This is something I can allow more often. I guess it brings back a certain challenge and allows them to place themselves into a starting point of self-direction and away from 'being the victim' of having to study this stuff.

But this only works with some. Often there is such a degree of being overwhelmed with the material, of feeling lost and not-knowing where to start, as they have allowed themselves to be discouraged early on and so there is no basis to build on; there is a self-perception, self-belief to be looked at too.

Sometimes the situation has been such that I asked what the problem is considered to be, what issue they have with the subject matter or the teacher, the situation at school or even with the parents or brothers and sisters. I find when the child/teenager has been able to address these points by simply stating them, talking about them a bit and accepting them being there for the moment, they realize that this is what is here at the moment and they allow themselves to be Here more. I say that he shouldn't let this direct him, he should take a deep breath, breathe out and consider what he wants to look at w/r/t the subject matter.

It's a permanent process of pushing through the starting point of self-defeat when I get the answer 'I don't know' (euphemism for 'I don't care') when I ask what they consider best to have a look at, what they need support with.

Actually it all boils down to being Here as who-we-are and facing the issues that are presenting themselves-as-us at the moment, instead of having pre-conceived ideas of what-to-present, or how to go about a lesson, or what is to be achieved. It's about us, who-we-are and what we allow as us and being Here together to see this, to face ourselves within and as it. The resistances toward something as a reflection of what we have allowed.