Philosophy of Mentoring Failing Students

Philosophy of Assisting Failing Students with Mentor Assistants

In this newsletter, we want to discuss the philosophy of mentoring failing students via Mentor Assistants, and we hope this information helps you to better understand the mentoring procedures we apply in schools.

Our starting point: If a student fails in school, this “failure” shows us that he/she is not entirely understood by his/her family and/or teachers and that a communication problem exists between them; it is our belief that students do not fail willingly. Success theory claims that each individual desires to be successful and that each and every person takes steps toward achieving this success. If a student fails, it means there were obstacles and barriers to success along the way, most probably involving parents’ or teachers’ relationships with the student and relationship with the students’ steps toward success. It means autonomy, competence, and relatedness were not fed enough by parents during childhood and continue not to be fed enough in school by teachers. Parents and teachers often play the largest roles in determining a child’s ability to pursue success by discovering potential.

Secondly, Bloom’s Taxonomy model suggests that if an individual has learned something, every individual can learn it; however, the time required for learning can change according to the individual’s circumstances. This means that a student will be successful if he/she is given the tools, space, and time required for him/her to successfully pursue and achieve it. Thus, if a student fails, it means the student’s current circumstances were not conducive for success, and so he/she was not motivated enough to follow through. Lack of motivation might stem from:

Reactions to parents or teacher(s)
Examples for parents:
Parents who force a student in such a manner not desired by them; parents desiring high academic success;
Lack of attention to or appreciation for a student’s strengths;
Failure in satisfying students’ social and/or emotional needs.
Examples for teachers:
Lack of communication between students and teachers inside and outside of class;
Teachers’ acts/behaviors offending students in class;
Inability to be motivated for or inspired by lessons.
Restriction of autonomies and competencies at home by parents and/or at school by teachers.

Failure to give autonomy and competence to students

People who grow up healthy from a psychological perspective productively struggle and grapple with problems, seeing problems as opportunities for further growth. They also have a positive outlook on events in their lives and see themselves as proactively making life happen for them rather than passively accepting what life gives them. They believe in earning what they achieve and are thankful for it. They are at peace with themselves and have self-confidence. Thanks to these characteristics, they can overcome the challenges they face.

From the self-determination theory (SDT) perspective, a person can grow up healthy psychologically if his/her basic psychological needs–competency, autonomy, and relatedness–have been completely satisfied during his/her childhood and school years. With autonomy, he/she will develop productive struggle methods to overcome challenges encountered on the road to achieving goals. With Competence, he/she explores his/her strengths and attempts to be successful and happy using them. With relatedness, he/she establishes strong social and emotional communication skills. Therefore, it is impossible for the students who have been fully satisfied or developed in these three basic psychological needs with the help of their parents to fail at school. These healthy students can find solutions for the problems they encounter and overcome them.

Our mentoring system is based on the improvement of consciousness of students and compensation of these three unsatisfied psychological basic needs, which lead to critical self-confidence. Compensation for insufficiencies can be achieved only if students establish and continue new and healthy relationships. Studying subjects together with a mentor assistant can be a path to developing strong relationships with friends and so, they can grow successful and happy in life.

Our project is aimed at establishing strong communication between the student and the Mentor Assistant, as they study together and collaboratively find solutions for problems. A strong and productive relationship can be achieved through appropriate guidance provided through www.academicwindow.com (we plan to give more details in upcoming newsletters), by training mentor assistants, and by gaining experience together in overcoming challenges and achieving goals over time. Therefore, it is significant for mentor assistants to mentor students up close and personal and to establish healthy goal-oriented relationships that help them in their personal development. Mentors can internalize the theoretical information by practicing appropriate guidance in meetings with students. For instance, in one of our first meetings with mentor assistants and mentees, a mentor assistant said: “those students who did not participate in the meeting must be warned seriously. Otherwise, we cannot continue this program successfully.” This shows that he/she has not internalized positive psychology yet. When noticing this, we had the opportunity to address this concern with the mentor right away and talked about the tone and applicable approaches from a positive psychological perspective. Positive counsel should be repeatedly performed both to be internalized and to be learned to practice in regular life. Thanks to the consistent application of the best practices we discussed, communication with students has improved already and can continue to improve. We believe teachers must also participate in mentoring training each year or at least biannually to continue improving their own levels of efficiency and satisfaction with their contributions toward students’ personal and character growth.

In the study, activities and special chats saw mentor assistants observe the strengths of the students and explore the reasons for their failure. Mentor assistants are capable of beginning this process thanks in part to the training they already participated in. As a result, students feel close to their mentor assistants and share their emotions and inner thoughts with them regularly. Students see mentor assistants as allies for making progress and as those they can fully trust. Mentor assistants are also relatable for students.

If mentoring support can be successfully applied in this respect, mentoring can be a solution for suicide, drug use, and other addictions. Since the core reasons for all of these problems are loneliness, inability to emotionally share with others, and not being understood by others, mentoring can serve as a cure for issues. If the mentor establishes a strong relationship with their mentees, this relationship can serve as a bridge in solving the problem, from which the next steps toward success and happiness come slowly. Here supporting and guiding mentor assistants are other critical points. I will explain how we guide and support in upcoming newsletters.

Mentor Assistant Training

We plan to address the selection and training of Mentor Assistants and their contribution to the counseling system at schools in a separate newsletter, but I’ll briefly explain mentor assistant training here.

Mentor assistants participate in training sessions held bi-weekly after school. These sessions are held bi-weekly because the training program is aimed at:

helping participants internalize each theory slowly over time. Communications are made with students to encourage them to make observations and motivate them to think critically about compelling character growth topics throughout the week.
encouraging students to study and learn from daily lessons.

Volunteer students who wish to be Mentor Assistants are included in this program. Different theories are addressed, including: Positive Psychology, Cognitive Development Theory, Self-Determination Theory, and Self-Regulation Theory, and their implementations are discussed in the sessions. Students are therefore prepared mentally to assist others.

Creating a healthy and effective sphere while decreasing the numbers of failed students and students with behavioral/disciplinary issues can be achieved only if mentor assistant students reach up to at least 10% or 15% of the total number of students at the school. Otherwise, negative energy is still so persistent among peers that it adversely affects the results of the program. By addressing a significant percentage of the school’s population, our program cultivates an entire school cultural shift toward positive psychology, recognition, team-building toward goals, the pursuit of strengths, and the discovery of strengths, potential, and success.

It is encouraged that mentor assistant training be provided by successful teachers who are respected by the students and who have formed close relationships with students inside and outside of the classroom rather than only by school counselors. Such a mentoring system will lead to significant improvements and a positive atmosphere in schools if it is supported by teachers’ training.

In the next newsletter, teachers who are giving training in practice will give details about mentor assistant training. We look forward to discussing the next steps then, and to keeping the entire community posted on the most recent and exciting updates!

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