THE VARIETY OF MENTORING EXPERIENCES
Definitions of Mentoring
The main agenda of the mentor is to instill in youth positive values, “mindsets” and solid social skills. Values are what gives a person direction and energy. Mindsets are beliefs, values and attitudes that make up prominent features of a person's identity. Social skills include compassion, cooperation, teamwork, assertiveness, responsibility and a sense of empathy. The effective mentor models these very values, mindsets and social skills, especially in building trust over time by keeping commitments and being a consistent and reliable advocate.
Athena, the Patron Saint of Mentoring. When Poseidon, the god of the sea, took leave from Mount Olympus to threaten all travelers at sea, it was Athena, the goddess of wisdom (often described as “clear eyed”) who intervened to assist Odysseus on his decade-long journey back home to Ithaca from the Trojan Wars. She did so directly, by rescuing him from shipwrecks. She also gave him room to overcome other challenges on his own.
In addition, Athena was quite active on the home front, intervening on behalf of other key members of Odysseus’ circle. She assisted Telemachus, Odysseus’ son, in standing up to the suitors seeking the hand of Odysseus’ wife and his mother, Penelope. And she even went so far as to disguise herself as Mentor, Telemachus’ tutor and the person most influential in his development from youth into adulthood. In brief, Athena functioned as a mentor.
In fact, Athena epitomized the art of mentoring, stepping in when necessary yet holding back when appropriate. Her approach was intergenerational. Her scope was communal. You could say that Athena is the patron saint for the method of mentoring we call “holistic.”
Holistic Mentoring. A holistic mentor is the point person who mobilizes resources—from medical attention and emotional support to academic skills building—on behalf of low-income students, playing the role of “changemaker.”
A changemaker is first a diagnostician in “making the map” (i.e., identifying the more promising channels that connect intentions with results) and “minding the gap” (i.e., uncovering the energy within the most relevant domains)—and second a designer in “building the app” (i.e.,determining the right approaches to take in leveraging the most viable community resources). Through exercising these functions the change maker creates an individualized plan. From there the changemaker can also assume the role of “team leader,” coordinating with those organizations and individuals within a community to carry out the plan or pass this responsibility on to others.
TRADITIONAL MODELS OF MENTORING AND TUTORING
Formal Mentoring consists of mentoring relationships initiated by an organization (such as Big Brothers and Sisters of America) that provides specific expectations, guidelines and structure to the relationship. The relationship lasts a finite period and is focused on specific objectives. Formal mentoring can be seasonal, topical mentoring and tactical.
Informal Mentoring are those relationships between a young person and a caring adult that just happen and happen organically. Informal mentoring can take place within existing support systems, such as the family (and extended family) and schools, clubs, religious organizations and/or outside of established organizations.
Peer Mentoring. According to the National Center on Mentoring, peer mentoring builds on the tradition of “peer leadership programs, peer counseling and peer support groups and often deliver their services in schools or after school settings.” It can be delivered one-on-one or in groups. “Common models include high school students who mentor middle school and elementary students and older students who work with incoming students.” Peer mentoring can also thrive in religious organizations, nonprofit out of school-time programs in which older youth lead their near-peers in recreational and developmental activities.” Peer mentoring, to be more precise, is in reality “near peer” mentoring, for the mentor clearly is somewhat older and more experienced.
Tutoring. The root of our word, tutor, (from Latin) is a “watcher, a protector and a guardian.” A tutor is now best characterized as a provider of instruction, especially remedial. A good tutor can help students strengthen such academic behaviors as attendance in school, active participation in class, doing homework and organizing materials. A tutor is often a necessity for young people who lack the most basic family and societal supports.
The chief role of the tutor is to help students develop learning strategies that are meaningful to them personally. These include study skills, the ability to “think about how you think” (“meta-cognition,” self-regulation, time management and goal setting.
NEW MODELS FOR MENTORING AND TUTORING
Mentor/Tutor Hybrid. The Mentor/Tutor Hybrid combines two roles: the mentor (whether natural or formal) and the tutor, who focuses on strengthening a student’s academic skills.
A tutor is often a necessity, especially for students who need to shore up their basic academic skills and keep pace with the rest of the class. Yet a tutor’s effectiveness can be diminished without having a wider grasp of a student’s social and emotional world. While each of these functions can be necessary, each can also be insufficient—hence the merger. By linking the wisdom and experience of the mentor—who guides young people to discover who they are and find their place in the world—with the skills of the tutor—who provides students with the most effective learning strategies to succeed in their school work, the mentor-tutor is able to gain access to the most essential and often most overlooked facets of academic success: students’ inner and social lives.
The mentor-tutor is especially attuned to such activities as school attendance, class participation, doing homework and organizing materials. The mentor-tutor also attends to nurturing in their students such social and emotional skills as perseverance, grit, self-discipline, self-control and delayed gratification.
By merging the roles of mentor and tutor, the sum becomes greater than its component parts. For, a mentor’s effectiveness can be undermined without an accompanying set of tasks and mutual sense of purpose. A tutor’s effectiveness can be diminished without a full understanding of their student’s social and emotional world.
Reciprocal Mentoring is the bringing together of older persons and younger adults who mentor each other on behalf of their students. For example, young adults bring a passion for justice and social change and an ability to work “24-7” for a cause they can embrace. They posses what older persons may have lost: the ability directly relate to the culture of youth.
Together, older persons and young adults can unleash an untapped source of innovation: two undervalued and underutilized sets of human resources combining forces to bring out the best in each other and form a highly productive and cost–effective team. Each generation can guide the other—younger folks instructing their elders in the ways of new technology and older persons offering their experience.
The result: a “win-win-win.” It’s a win for older persons, by giving them new opportunities for living a healthy and productive life well into the traditional retirement years. It’s a win for young adults, especially in launching them into the world of work and giving them the opportunity to work older folks. And, most important of all, it’s a win for low-income students themselves and their families.
Cascading Mentoring is reciprocal mentoring in the context of serving on a team. The team leader is in a position to guide those experts on a steering committee, such as pediatricians, school counselors, social workers and community members, who in turn can guide those who are working on the ground in schools and clinics, who in turn guide case workers, who in turn guide one-on-one mentors and tutors, “cascading” on down the line.
Another way that cascading mentoring works is when older persons take on the role of diagnostician and designer in vetting promising initiatives. They are in a good position to oversee the recruitment, training and equipping of teams of younger mentors (no age restrictions) who work on the ground in schools and youth organizations. Let’s call this second level of mentors “advocates.” These advocates, can take on a case load of mentees, depending on their availability and skill sets. They can also oversee a third level of mentors—college and high school students who work more directly with students.
THE INTANGIBLES
THE PARKING LOT
The root of the word, mentor, in Latin is “mens,” or “mind,” which also includes such concepts as “mentos” or intent, as well as purpose, spirit and passion. A mentor, like Athena, is positioned to intervene directly to help in figuring things out and more indirectly in offering perspective.
The main agenda of the mentor is to instill in youth positive values, “mindsets” and solid social skills. Values are what gives a person direction and energy. Mindsets are beliefs, values and attitudes that make up prominent features of a person's identity. Social skills include compassion, cooperation, teamwork, assertiveness, responsibility and a sense of empathy. The effective mentor models these very values, mindsets and social skills, especially in building trust over time by keeping commitments and being a consistent and reliable advocate.
Athena, the Patron Saint of Mentoring. When Poseidon, the god of the sea, took leave from Mount Olympus to threaten all travelers at sea, it was Athena, the goddess of wisdom (often described as “clear eyed”) who intervened to assist Odysseus on his decade-long journey back home to Ithaca from the Trojan Wars. She did so directly, by rescuing him from shipwrecks. She also gave him room to overcome other challenges on his own.
In addition, Athena was quite active on the home front, intervening on behalf of other key members of Odysseus’ circle. She assisted Telemachus, Odysseus’ son, in standing up to the suitors seeking the hand of Odysseus’ wife and his mother, Penelope. And she even went so far as to disguise herself as Mentor, Telemachus’ tutor and the person most influential in his development from youth into adulthood. In brief, Athena functioned as a mentor.
In fact, Athena epitomized the art of mentoring, stepping in when necessary yet holding back when appropriate. Her approach was intergenerational. Her scope was communal. You could say that Athena is the patron saint for the method of mentoring we call “holistic.”
Holistic Mentoring. A holistic mentor is the point person who mobilizes resources—from medical attention and emotional support to academic skills building—on behalf of low-income students, playing the role of “changemaker.”
A changemaker is first a diagnostician in “making the map” (i.e., identifying the more promising channels that connect intentions with results) and “minding the gap” (i.e., uncovering the energy within the most relevant domains)—and second a designer in “building the app” (i.e.,determining the right approaches to take in leveraging the most viable community resources). Through exercising these functions the change maker creates an individualized plan. From there the changemaker can also assume the role of “team leader,” coordinating with those organizations and individuals within a community to carry out the plan or pass this responsibility on to others.
TRADITIONAL MODELS OF MENTORING AND TUTORING
Formal Mentoring consists of mentoring relationships initiated by an organization (such as Big Brothers and Sisters of America) that provides specific expectations, guidelines and structure to the relationship. The relationship lasts a finite period and is focused on specific objectives. Formal mentoring can be seasonal, topical mentoring and tactical.
Informal Mentoring are those relationships between a young person and a caring adult that just happen and happen organically. Informal mentoring can take place within existing support systems, such as the family (and extended family) and schools, clubs, religious organizations and/or outside of established organizations.
Peer Mentoring. According to the National Center on Mentoring, peer mentoring builds on the tradition of “peer leadership programs, peer counseling and peer support groups and often deliver their services in schools or after school settings.” It can be delivered one-on-one or in groups. “Common models include high school students who mentor middle school and elementary students and older students who work with incoming students.” Peer mentoring can also thrive in religious organizations, nonprofit out of school-time programs in which older youth lead their near-peers in recreational and developmental activities.” Peer mentoring, to be more precise, is in reality “near peer” mentoring, for the mentor clearly is somewhat older and more experienced.
Tutoring. The root of our word, tutor, (from Latin) is a “watcher, a protector and a guardian.” A tutor is now best characterized as a provider of instruction, especially remedial. A good tutor can help students strengthen such academic behaviors as attendance in school, active participation in class, doing homework and organizing materials. A tutor is often a necessity for young people who lack the most basic family and societal supports.
The chief role of the tutor is to help students develop learning strategies that are meaningful to them personally. These include study skills, the ability to “think about how you think” (“meta-cognition,” self-regulation, time management and goal setting.
NEW MODELS FOR MENTORING AND TUTORING
Mentor/Tutor Hybrid. The Mentor/Tutor Hybrid combines two roles: the mentor (whether natural or formal) and the tutor, who focuses on strengthening a student’s academic skills.
A tutor is often a necessity, especially for students who need to shore up their basic academic skills and keep pace with the rest of the class. Yet a tutor’s effectiveness can be diminished without having a wider grasp of a student’s social and emotional world. While each of these functions can be necessary, each can also be insufficient—hence the merger. By linking the wisdom and experience of the mentor—who guides young people to discover who they are and find their place in the world—with the skills of the tutor—who provides students with the most effective learning strategies to succeed in their school work, the mentor-tutor is able to gain access to the most essential and often most overlooked facets of academic success: students’ inner and social lives.
The mentor-tutor is especially attuned to such activities as school attendance, class participation, doing homework and organizing materials. The mentor-tutor also attends to nurturing in their students such social and emotional skills as perseverance, grit, self-discipline, self-control and delayed gratification.
By merging the roles of mentor and tutor, the sum becomes greater than its component parts. For, a mentor’s effectiveness can be undermined without an accompanying set of tasks and mutual sense of purpose. A tutor’s effectiveness can be diminished without a full understanding of their student’s social and emotional world.
Reciprocal Mentoring is the bringing together of older persons and younger adults who mentor each other on behalf of their students. For example, young adults bring a passion for justice and social change and an ability to work “24-7” for a cause they can embrace. They posses what older persons may have lost: the ability directly relate to the culture of youth.
Together, older persons and young adults can unleash an untapped source of innovation: two undervalued and underutilized sets of human resources combining forces to bring out the best in each other and form a highly productive and cost–effective team. Each generation can guide the other—younger folks instructing their elders in the ways of new technology and older persons offering their experience.
The result: a “win-win-win.” It’s a win for older persons, by giving them new opportunities for living a healthy and productive life well into the traditional retirement years. It’s a win for young adults, especially in launching them into the world of work and giving them the opportunity to work older folks. And, most important of all, it’s a win for low-income students themselves and their families.
Cascading Mentoring is reciprocal mentoring in the context of serving on a team. The team leader is in a position to guide those experts on a steering committee, such as pediatricians, school counselors, social workers and community members, who in turn can guide those who are working on the ground in schools and clinics, who in turn guide case workers, who in turn guide one-on-one mentors and tutors, “cascading” on down the line.
Another way that cascading mentoring works is when older persons take on the role of diagnostician and designer in vetting promising initiatives. They are in a good position to oversee the recruitment, training and equipping of teams of younger mentors (no age restrictions) who work on the ground in schools and youth organizations. Let’s call this second level of mentors “advocates.” These advocates, can take on a case load of mentees, depending on their availability and skill sets. They can also oversee a third level of mentors—college and high school students who work more directly with students.
THE INTANGIBLES
THE PARKING LOT
The root of the word, mentor, in Latin is “mens,” or “mind,” which also includes such concepts as “mentos” or intent, as well as purpose, spirit and passion. A mentor, like Athena, is positioned to intervene directly to help in figuring things out and more indirectly in offering perspective.