Dear Educators and Subscribers:
Happy Spring! In this Newsletter edition, we would like to first express our sincere appreciation for each and every person’s active involvement and commitment to improving the lives of those around us one day and one good deed at a time. We are inspired to keep making the best possible impact on our community, and to do so by sharing helpful insights and awareness. After all, the goal of our mentoring program is not only for mentors to help mentees keep growing, but to also help our mentors and community to connect socially and grow through rewarding interactions and human experiences in this process.
Our mentoring program is designed to spread slowly over time so that our own mentees eventually become mentors. Until now, I myself have trained only one group of students. This year, two teachers and I are training three groups of students. The mentors who were trained last year started mentoring this year with failing students. Each mentor has just a few mentees; this way, they can work more closely with them. Essentially, our mentors are gaining great practical experience so that they may provide even more improved mentoring services to our students each year. Our target is to give training to half of the student body, which is also explained in our 3-year package service program for schools. It is hypothesized that when we reach our target, many social and emotional, addiction-based, and other personal problems will be addressed in our school.
The effectiveness of a mentoring program depends mostly on close relationships continuously being established between mentors and mentees. Effectiveness also depends on how we implement personalized interventions reported by our strengths-based preventive counseling program at Academic Window. Therefore, we even planned to introduce our mentors to their mentees’ parents in order to focus on and improve the power of relationship building between mentors and mentees. It is our belief that the stronger the mentor-mentee relationships, the more impactful the program and process. Close, common purpose-driven relationships essentially build emotional ties between mentors and mentees. Over time, we will also monitor and follow up on the scientific results of this practice.
In schools, targeting training many students at the same time can be an ambitious mistake. To reach the best possible outcomes over the long run, it is more beneficial to in fact start with small groups. Creating a few success stories will be helpful for next year’s groups of students. These success stories will result in the butterfly effect to spread over the course of time. Students can gradually internalize the process when measured steps are patiently taken, which can then make going forward easier.
Overall, our meetings with our mentees’ parents were very beneficial. I explained my personal experiences with parents, and how I also mentored for many years while I was a student in high school and college. My mentees and I still stay connected to this day and have established meaningful life-long relationships. These relationships have affected my whole life very positively. In fact, I now consider some of my mentees my very best friends, as we talk often over the phone and visit each other on occasion too.
In our meeting with parents, we conducted a training session too. The topics of “how to behave so that our children grow up psychologically healthy” and “the importance of three components of psychological basic needs – competence, autonomy and relatedness” were discussed at length and in great depth. Parents also shared their own stories from their home lives and experiences with their children. These kinds of discussions are deep, genuine, and result in a healthy, positive, open, and inviting environment. In fact, even after leaving the building, I still saw two parents from this session further discussing these topics together. This is precisely what is so rewarding to see – to see our conversations remain ongoing, genuine, well-connected and meaningful in the scope of each and every person’s life. As we realize that every person is unique, we also realize that our messages may carry unique meanings for each person. Thank you as always for being a part of the conversation, for listening to our thoughts, and for sharing your ideas too. Being a part of such candid and open dialogue is the kind of practice that will help each and every one of us to keep learning and growing together as we share our own unique perspectives and strengths.
I am always ready to listen to your valuable experiences and to share mine with you in order to create a better school atmosphere and future for all. Let us continue to keep in touch as we keep making a positive difference one day at a time.
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