Body Language in the Writing Center

Yesterday, in one of my "teacher classes," we examined an interesting article entitled "How to Train Your Mate," by Maureen Dowd of the New York Times. While the title evokes a potential Cosmo article, it raises some interesting psychological questions that actually can be connected to education--and, as I found, perhaps tutoring. Dowd quotes anthropologist Helen Fisher, author of "Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love," as follows: "Men and woman tend to get intimacy differently," she [Fisher] explained. "Women get intimacy from face-to-face contact. We do what we call the anchoring gaze. It comes from millions of years of holding your baby in front of your face. Men tend to get intimacy by doing things side-by-side, because for millions of years they faced their enemy but sat side by side with their friends." I'm not suggesting we should read this article to gain helpful tips for flirting with our clients. Rather, we should examine the ways in which body language affects how we appear to our clients when sitting at the round table. Maybe sitting face-to-face with a male could be interpreted differently than it would be sitting next to a female, or vice-versa. Also, body language can be interpreted differently according to culture-- something else to think about in our diverse WC. Body language is another important way in which we listen to and respond to our clients Eager to find more information on this topic, I googled "Tutoring Body Language" and found the following links that may be worth a glance or two: Penn State iStudy, The Positivity Blog - 18 Body Language Tips, and Strategies for Intercultural Tutoring. Not only should this be useful for our client-tutor rapport here in the Writing Center, but also in our future careers.