Why True Mentoring Works

Being a classroom teacher is a funny thing. Especially if you’re teaching in the ‘hood. If you start at the beginning of the school year, you get a roster of kids you know little if anything about and are expected to whip them into shape in a few weeks and have a great school year. This usually means scoring high on whatever standardized test they have to take that year.

In the better school districts, teachers get their roster for the school year weeks in advance. Sometimes before the previous school year ends! The previous and current teachers have opportunities to discuss the students and in general, the students and their families are known by most of the school and personnel. This is important because it provides the chance to discuss particular students strengths, weaknesses, helpful family members, etc.

I’ve taught in schools where not only did I not get my roster for the upcoming year weeks in advance, I got it the first day of school! Sometimes you have new kids coming in for the first time every day for weeks, and kids on your roster who never show up.

So, you quickly (and I mean quickly!) learn everyone’s names, and get started on setting up routines and systems in your classroom. In general, the roster finalizes in about a month. There’s a hard deadline given by the state and students enrolled at your school get funding for the year. By this time, you’ve probably got around 6 months before they take whatever standardized test their grade takes for that school year. It might determine whether or not they pass to the next grade, have to go to summer school, or even fail and have to repeat that grade!

And, of course, it may determine what high schools they get accepted to or college/university they may be eligible to attend.

I bring all this up because, as a teacher, you learn to make it work. Out of all the instability and chaos, you get the classroom into a good groove. You learn which students can help clean and keep the classroom in order. Who’s good at collecting and organizing books and classwork. Who can help pass out pizza at the class parties. You learn who you have to be gentle with and who you have to really push and be hard on. You learn not to call that student’s parents because they won’t help: you have to call the Uncle or Big Brother/Big Sister! You learn who has two parents in the home and who’s like a second mother or father to their siblings and are taking care of the household…etc, etc.

Well, by the end of the school year, just when you’ve got a good handle on everything… it’s over: it’s time to move on! All the kids are going to the next level (hopefully!) and you have a new batch about to come in. You try as much as you can to pass on this hard won info to the next teacher, but sometimes (most times in poor schools with a lot of teacher turnover) you don’t know who that teacher is. And the next year, once you do know, you’re so busy trying to get your new class ready, you don’t have the time to!

What always made this a sad fact to me is, I generally felt like Ok! Now that I’ve learned about this group and we have a good working relationship and the trust is in place, we can really take off! I can really teach them some stuff and we can accomplish some good things together! But…it’s time to go! No time for any of that.

Well, that’s what led me to start mentoring. You see, with mentoring, you don’t have the time constraints that the average teacher faces. It may take some time to establish trust, understanding and how to maximize the working relationship between mentor and mentee, but once it’s established, you can build on it, and don’t have to worry about having to cut short on the progress you’ve built because a semester ends, or a new school year is beginning. So ultimately, the opportunity is there to really positively affect the life of the one getting mentored and to accomplish so much more as time passes!

The mentoring relationship is like fine wine… it truly gets better with age! So as we continue to celebrate National Mentoring Month, let’s remember that progress takes positive consistency over time. Let’s give our children, our most precious resource, all the time that they need to become everything they can be and more!