One of my character flaws is that I always think that I can fix things. Usually, the Automatic Maturity Brake kicks on, slowing the skidding car, the plummeting elevator, the deranged president (use whatever analogy best works), and I realize with some chagrin that while the problem is fixable, it isn't fixable by me. Someone who actually knows what they're doing is required.
Apropos of nothing: I think that Dick Cheney is an evil spider laying poisonous eggs (okay, work with me, here), and seriously undermining the tripartite method of government, but you know, you have to admire his sheer ability at promoting his agenda. The man's a freepin' genius. He clearly knows what he's doing.
Anyway. When I wrote an couple of earlier posts about mentoring, I was hoping that someone who's actually done it would be able to give me an idea as to what to expect. I was surprised to get two responses that essentially said that mentoring is an 'on your own' activity -- that schools don't supply the materials you'd think, or the support you'd think. While my experiences thus far may be mostly because I've never done it before (I heard two other mentors talking about their kids, and they were saying 'Gee, can't see why this kid is in the program, as he's passing everything...okay maybe one grades a little low'. Paradoxically, I thought a) Gee, why did I get the kid with major academic problems, and b) Hah, you wimps, my kid is failing one and damn near close to failing three others, take that!) -- still, its obscurely comforting to know that other people have noticed that the execution of school people when it comes to mentoring problems is long on theory, short on practice. If you do a web search for 'mentoring' and 'middle school', you get lots of hits for sites that say things like 'We, the students and faculty of the West Cheepeapick Middle School and Carwash, support the Mentoring program as a way of promoting values, encouraging independence, propagating the virtues of responsibility and organization, and making the occasional buck', but you don't find hardly any that have actual details about how to be a mentor. Lots of things about how wonderful mentoring is, how good it can be, terrific results, but not too much on how to do it.
So of course I thought 'Well, I can document what works'. And, god help me, for just a moment I thought 'yeah, I can do that, build a web page with Proven Strategies and Executable Methods, Tools That Work (tm), people will come from miles around to read the page, noting my methods for their own use, filling my comment buffers with adulation and praise, and leggy Swedish models will be mine'. No, not you, Lars.
Then I thought 'well, didn't you think you could fix the stupid teacher pages, too? What in the least, idiot boy, makes you think they'd let you do that; what in the least makes you think you could build a page on what to do when, after all, you're clueless, you're barely winging it now?'
Oh. Um...yeah.
4 comments:
Yeah!
I would be shocked to find ANY teacher assistance. I am sure they feel that any resources spent on you came from their resource budget...that on a very fundamental level, I bet they feel that if they had been given enough resources, they would have got the job done without you.
The fact that they can't teach the kid shows that they failed in this case. The fact that you are even there rubs their noses in it. These are teachers who fight the uphill battle every day, and they don't take failure lightly! And to bring in an amateur to do a job they couldn't do? Hmmm.
No, its not right, but it IS human nature. Everybody hates the QA guy!
(And they, like, totally shun the Time and Motion Study guy, but then, that's another story.)
I suspect its more a matter of staff versus resources. Private schools tend to do this kind of thing better because, in part, they have more funding, and in part because the parent base tends to be more energised. I don't think the teachers failed so much as the school methodolgy isn't oriented toward making mentoring effective -- or, indeed, much outside of academics, save, of course, football.
You're absolutely right. He is an evil spider. (No stretch of the imagination needed.)
To the subject at hand: It's certainly a failure of the instituteion, but not necessarily the school system. Sure, the school system has plenty of its own problems, but many problems also arise from kids not getting the support and encouragement they need from home.
One of my favorite songs in West Side Story-- I can't think of the name of it-- but all the kids are in an ally talking about how the officer blamed one guy, who blamed another, who blamed another, who blamed another, until finally the only thing they could agree on was that the kid had problems. It was just one big circle. It's a great song... really cute.
It's a similar situation that begs the question -- another version of which came first.
I don't know what kind of support the kid gets. I know that the parents are divorced, though he does get to see both, individually. There are 4 kids in all, living with the father. I know nothing about him.
I keep telling the kid he's obviously bright; the truth is, its more like not being obviously dumb.I asked him if he was dumb, while we were talking about school and classes; he said yes; I asked why he said that, and he said Because I get bad grades. I told him that grades only matter in school -- get through it, and no one cares -- what they care about is what you know, not your GPA. Which I admit is not strictly true, but true enough, I think. It got his attention, briefly.
I want to believe in this kid, and I think that if I obviously do, some of it will rub off on him. I admit to being optimistic.
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