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Mentoring -- Opening Up Possibilities In A Young Person's Life

By Colleen Appleby-Carroll for The Bureau For At-Risk Youth

Experience shows that the single most important factor in deciding a young person's success is having a caring adult -- a mentor -- to say, "I believe in you," -- someone to offer the guidance, encouragement and support each child needs to unlock his or her enormous potential.

You yourself probably have felt mentoring's awesome power in your own life. Knowing that someone was standing behind you gave you the courage to try…and to succeed.

But in America today, 15.7 million young people are engaging in at-risk behaviors because they have no one to turn to for guidance -- no one to offer the encouragement and confidence to aspire to a better life.

There is good news, however. Growing numbers of people - parents, school officials, policymakers, corporate leaders and others - are recognizing the power of mentoring and finding new ways to ensure that every child who needs or wants a mentor gets one. And The National Mentoring Partnership and State and Local Partnerships in 30 locations across the country are helping to bring that commitment to life.

A New Take On An Old Tradition

Mentoring is a tried-and-true strategy that has endured through the years. We can trace it back as far as ancient Greece. Indeed, the word "mentor" first appeared in Homer's epic poem, The Odyssey. In the poem, Odysseus asked his trusted friend, Mentor, to watch over his household and guide the development of his son, Telemachus, while Odysseus embarked on his 20-year journey. Throughout Telemachus' life, Mentor advised him and served as his instructor and role model, eventually preparing Telemachus for his own journey into the world.

Until recently, most formal mentoring took place in a one-to-one, long-term relationship between a mentor and mentee. But in recent years, the concept of mentoring has expanded to embrace the divergent needs of young people today. Now, in schools across the country, you will find mentoring programs that help children achieve academic success. Workplace mentoring programs are flourishing, as well. Through these programs, young people are brought to worksites where they meet with their mentors and experience, first-hand, what to expect when they enter the job market. Such programs not only provide practical information, they also offer positive role models and open young people's eyes to a wide array of career possibilities.

With so many men and women working long hours these days, finding time to volunteer can be a challenge. That is why e-mentoring -- mentoring via e-mail -- holds great promise for the future. Though a relatively new phenomenon, e-mentoring is growing in popularity both with young people, who are savvy with computers, and adults who want to mentor but are limited by time constraints.

One very promising program is The Digital Heroes Campaign, a national mentoring initiative created by PEOPLE magazine in partnership with America Online and in association with The National Mentoring Partnership, PowerUP, and The Waitt Family Foundation. This unique program has partnered some of America's most prominent individuals with young people in underserved communities, via a secure e-mail site. Now in its second year, the program is serving as a prototype for the development of elements of effective practice that other e-mentoring programs can follow to ensure they are both safe and effective. The National Mentoring Partnership has brought together a team of experts including representatives from PEOPLE and AOL Time Warner to develop these all-important elements.

Focusing The Spotlight On Mentoring

This month, for the first time, we are bringing national attention to the great potential of mentoring in all its forms with the launch of National Mentoring Month.

The Harvard Mentoring Project and The National Mentoring Partnership created National Mentoring Month to help make mentoring a national priority. Other participants include local and state mentoring partnerships in more than 30 locations throughout the nation, America's Promise - the Alliance for Youth, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, Communities In Schools, Mentoring USA, One Hundred Black Men of America, The Partnership for Drug-Free America, The Points of Light Foundation and Save the Children.

Beginning this month - and every January thereafter - the media have an opportunity to focus on a single issue: mentoring. In addition, local mentoring programs are able to use this time of heightened interest to encourage community-wide planning and coordinate their efforts for greater impact.

This large-scale public service campaign will recruit volunteer mentors for children who are at risk of not leading healthy, productive lives. This national effort to promote mentoring includes AOL Time Warner, the major television networks (ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC) Viacom Outdoor, TV stations in 25 media markets and leading newspapers, magazines and radio stations.

We anticipate that, as a result of the media exposure, thousands of interested adults will take action to become mentors. The public service ads and announcements will drive those prospective volunteers to our web site, www.mentoring.org, where they can enter their ZIP code on the "Be a Mentor" section of our home page. They will then be linked to nearby volunteer opportunities through our national mentoring database of more than 4,400 mentoring programs. Or, they can call our toll-free number -- 1-888-432-MENTOR -- to be linked with appropriate mentoring opportunities. This system is designed to ensure each individual receives a follow-up call from a mentoring program -- so he or she makes the crucial step from merely showing interest to taking action.

With 15.7 million young people in need of mentors, the challenge is tremendous. But The National Mentoring Partnership and our state and local partnerships are doing all we can to connect America's children with caring adults.

For more information on how to become a mentor or to run a rewarding mentoring program, visit www.mentoring.org.

Also, be sure to check out our new monthly In Focus column highlighting current issues in the mentoring movement launching in February here on The Guidance Channel.

The Roadmap For Setting Goals And Achieving Success

By Franklin Schargel for GuidanceChannel.com

Educators are used to setting goals. Teachers set goals when they plan lessons and set annual academic progress targets. Special educators set goals for their students when they develop Individual Education Plans (IEPs). Counselors set goals when they guide students and parents. School administrators set goals when they develop School Improvement Plans. Yet this critical life skill must be taught to the children they serve.

Life without goals is similar to sailing a ship across the ocean without a map. Goals, like maps, help students to get to their destination much faster than sailing aimlessly. When one wants to go on a trip, he looks at a map and plans his route. If he gets lost, he rechecks his map, makes corrections, and goes on his way.

By setting goals, young people can determine precisely what they want to achieve and know what they have to concentrate on to do to it. By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, they can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals. The process of achieving goals and seeing this achievement gives students confidence that they will be able to achieve higher and more difficult goals.

Why set goals?

To identify priorities

To get organized

To make big decisions

To realize dreams

How To Set Goals

A goal should be specific enough so that one knows exactly what one is striving toward. They also need to be measurable so that one can tell when the goal`s been reached. Being realistic, setting deadlines, and recognizing resources are important, as well.

One simple way to teach students how to set a goal statement is to use the old S.M.A.R.T. acronym used by many successful personal coaches. Set goals that are...

S

The more clearly defined their goals are, the easier they will be to attain. They should determine dates, times and amounts so they can measure their achievement.

M

Making success measurable enables students to avoid activity-based goals that can go on indefinitely. They should constantly evaluate their progress and recognize what is working and what is not. If an approach is not working, revise it or drop it. Lay out a roadmap with guideposts and road markers. When students measure their progress, they stay on track, reach their target dates, and experience achievement.

Attainable

Students need to set goals grand enough to challenge themselves. "Stretch goals" push them to reach limits beyond what they would normally achieve. But they need to have confidence that they can attain them.

R

It`s necessary to be practical and honest with oneself, as well. For example, be sure that the deadline is realistic. Periodically review the longer-term plans, and modify them to reflect your changing priorities and experiences.

T

To achieve a long-term goal, set a time line using short-term goals. For example, if a student`s long-term goal is to improve her grades, help her to set short-term goals to raise her score on one test at a time. Goals should be reviewed at least once a week and daily, if possible.

Questions For Students To Consider...

• Who is involved and who is impacted by achieving the goal?
• What do I want to accomplish and what will be achieved if the goal is accomplished?
• When do I want to complete my goal?
• Which things will interfere with what I am trying to do?
• Why am I trying to accomplish this goal?
• How will I know when the goal is accomplished?

The only way to achieve goals is to take action. With guidance and encouragement from educators, counselors, and parents, young people can learn how to create their own unique roadmaps to success.

How Do You Want to Live?

By Kwok-Sze Richard Wong for American School Counselor Association

Each year, my children’s elementary school yearbook publishes the goals of all the students who are moving on to middle school. A few years ago when he was in sixth grade, my son Tyler wrote that he wanted to be a professional athlete and an electric guitarist. I have no doubts that he has the ability and the drive to accomplish one or both someday, just as I am sure some of his friends will fulfill their goals of becoming judges, marine biologists and fashion critics.

Unfortunately, these responses illustrate the common notion that life goals are inextricably tied to occupation or vocation. This is probably a holdover from the archaic practice of asking children what they want to be when they grow up. Most young children would find it almost impossible to answer this question. After all, most elementary-age children don’t know enough about potential occupations or their own skills and interests to even have aspirations. Yes, they need to be aware that they eventually will need a profession. However, some professions that will engage today’s children do not exist yet. Others that currently exist will be long extinct.

When I worked at a publishing company, on the eve of the computer age, all manuscripts were sent to two women who manually entered every manuscript into a large machine that printed the manuscripts in columns. The columns of print were then sent to another person who cut them up and pasted them onto boards. Few of us today even remember that as recently as 10 years ago, there were professionals called “typesetters” and “paste-up artists.” Conversely, 10 years ago no one would have grasped the concept of a profession called “website designer.”

Asking young children what they want to be when they grow up perpetuates a misconception that even most adults hold. Too often, we confuse what we do with who we are. As adults, we are defined by our roles: we’re somebody’s mother, somebody’s teacher, somebody’s counselor or somebody’s boss. Invariably, those roles revolve around our occupation and tend to disregard the other facets of our lives.

Career planning should begin not by asking children what they want to be, but how they want to live. Some of Tyler’s friends had the right idea. They stated that their goals were “to have a good life,” “to have a healthy life,” or “to love what I do.” From there, they can explore what is important to them, what would make them happy and what they would need to do in order to lead a good life.

Some of Tyler’s other friends set goals “to win the Nobel Peace Prize,” “to start a Fortune 500 company,” or “to save an endangered species.” One adventurous classmate said he wanted “to have a formal dinner on top of Mt. Everest.” Undoubtedly, any of those accomplishments would bring them happiness and fulfillment and may have little to do with their chosen occupation. I hope Tyler pursues and accomplishes his life goals. I hope he leads a happy life full of contentment. I hope he enjoys what he does, even if he never gets paid to play basketball or the electric guitar.

In the meantime, he is finding contentment just playing his guitar for fun…and loudly. Fortunately, he shares my taste in music. He favors The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd over Linkin Park and Three Doors Down. He enjoys asking me to name a famous guitarist so he can guess the kind of guitar he played or dissecting lyrics by The Who. Last year, he was assigned to write a paper on the most influential person in his life. Given our shared interest in rock and roll and our long conversations during our frequent drives to the guitar store, I should not have been surprised when he wrote about…Les Paul, a pioneer of the electric guitar.

I don’t mind that he didn’t write a paper about me. I know that parents are the most important influence on their children’s lives, but we all need to revere someone bigger than life. We look to our parents as mentors and guides, but we also need someone we idolize.

As a writer, I have always had a high regard for Ernest Hemingway, although I don’t necessarily emulate his lifestyle. I like his simple writing style and his ability to paint vivid images or to capture complex ideas with a minimum of words. I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that he first checked into the Mayo Clinic in 1960, the year after my family moved to Rochester, Minnesota. In fact, my father worked at my uncles’ restaurant, Wong’s Café, which is near the Mayo Clinic and is still operated by my cousins. I’m enthralled by the idea that I was just a few blocks away from him. I often wonder what would have happened if I had been older and had had a chance to meet him. How would that brush with greatness have affected me?

I suspect that Hemingway may have told me that he never set out to be famous or important. He never intended to be one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. In fact, he stumbled upon his first job as a journalist quite by accident when he was just 18 years old. Hemingway was certainly larger than life, but he probably would say he was simply living his life and following his passions.

This seems to be true for most people who attain greatness. The pursuit of fame is an empty endeavor. The pursuit of passion leads to fulfillment, and if it was meant to be, fame and fortune. Many influential and pioneering theorists and inventors certainly seemed to believe in this principle. Most of them probably could not imagine the impact that their ideas would eventually have on future generations. After all, Les Paul didn’t try to become famous as a pioneer of electric guitars; he just wanted to sound good when he played for his wife.

For the past several years, I have had the privilege of serving as a judge for the USA Today All-USA High School Academic Team. Each year, all of the 80 finalists I judge are outstanding, making the judging extremely difficult. However, I have noticed one thread common to all the finalists: they all have one interest that absorbs them, an interest that sometimes has little relation to their academic studies. Whether it involves music, art, science, drama, math or community service, the students have jumped in head-first because they enjoyed it or because it had some meaning to their life, and any academic or career benefits were a bonus they discovered afterward.

From these astonishing students, I learned an important truth about career planning. If we help students do what they love, then everything else will follow. Sometimes, the best way to find something is to stop looking for it. Similarly, the best way to help students plan for the future is not to help them find successful careers, but to help them find meaningful and fulfilling lives. As parents and as educators, we shouldn’t just help our students plan for a career, we should help them pursue a passion. We should help them understand that what they do does not define who they are. We should stop asking them what they want to be when they grow up and start asking them how they want to live.