On Weaknesses.

A few months into my stint as a journalist, I got sent to cover breaking news in a nearby town. A worker installing a new billboard had gotten too close to a power line and had gotten hurt. I arrived on scene, got some really good interviews, and then returned to the office to type up my story.

Before then, I had written some really good articles that had brought comments from the community, and, more importantly, my editors. The story I was working on that day seemed easy in comparison. I had an emotional eyewitness statement. The story was going to be at the top of tomorrow’s front page, but it probably only took me 30 minutes to write. Those were the best kind of stories.

“A man was electrocuted Tuesday afternoon,” the story began. “He received first and second degree burns and was airlifted to a nearby hospital.” It, along with a photo of the harrowing ordeal, appeared on newsstands the next day.

That next morning, I got an email from my editor. It was a forwarded message from a colleague at the paper’s big-city company headquarters. “Check the definition of ‘electrocuted,’ the message said.

My editor felt bad for not catching it, and I felt even worse for writing it in the first place. I chose “electrocuted” because it was a more powerful word, I thought, than “shocked.” I didn’t stop to think that the words had different meanings.

After the initial embarrassment subsided, I decided I would ask more questions – of editors, coworkers, anyone. I would also attend as many training sessions as I could. Those training sessions are often boring, and 90% of the material covered may be stuff you already know. But that other 10% is what’s going to turn you into a better writer.

As tutors, we need to be aware of our weaknesses. We need to know when we should ask for help. If we do, eventually, those weaknesses will disappear. Sure, they’ll be replaced with other weak points we never knew we had. But that’s what learning and tutoring is all about. Likewise, we need to be able to recognize when others (tutees and colleagues) are asking for help.

David Halberstam was a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist who covered the Vietnam War, and later sports, politics and business. He died earlier this year in a car accident. A quote of his was pinned over my desk, and it became ingrained in my mind. I think it applies to tutoring as well as journalism.

“I had made myself into a professional,” Halberstam said in 2005, “and had done it, in no small part, not so much by trying to reinforce my strengths as most people do, but by trying to eliminate my weaknesses.”