As this quarter of our project is winding down, we have to make the schedule for next quarter. This was a challenge for this quarter since lining up the elementary's schedule with ours is complicated. Next quarter will likely be just as challenging, because there are end of year convocations over at the elementary school, those days we are not supposed to send the mentors.
Talking to the current mentors, all of the meetings are going very well! They all seem to have connected with their partners, which is terrific to hear. That is what this program is all about, two people making connections that will hopefully improve each life for the better. The mentors are excited to go over to the elementary, and I hear that the elementary kids love it. There has been one elementary student who dropped out of the program, but that was only because she is a little shy and being "singled out" by having a mentor wasn't her style, which is understandable. Now, with our written schedule for next semester, we will start logging it into the schedule on the computer so that all of the participants have access (mentors, secretary at the elementary, as well as the counselor over there!). The schedule on the computer is very important to everyone because it is the most up to date schedule that we have available. When something changes, we immediately edit it on the schedule so that there are no questions about whether a mentor is going over to the elementary or not; that is especially important during this time of the year since it is so cold! I am happy with this program because it is now going well. Hopefully it will be able to continue next year.
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Last week, I met with our contact over at the elementary school. We talked about the program, and how a couple of the boys at the elementary school still did not have mentors. We fixed this problem by deciding to rotate who our high school boy mentors meet with each session. I am glad we were able to meet in person because conversations in person are much more productive than communicating over email.
This week we had six mentors going over to the elementary school. Usually we only have about three or four, so it was a busier week than usual, which is great. Next week, the elementary school has an altered schedule due to statewide testing. Hopefully this won't affect our current schedule. Below is an image of our schedule for the month of March. If next week's altered schedule interferes with the week after next's schedule, we will have to alter ours for March. For the past few weeks, we have been communicating with both the mentors and our contact at the elementary school. There have been a few challenges, one of which we have not been able to solve yet. This challenge is one or two of the elementary mentees have not been scheduled with a mentor yet. This is because their schedules do not line up with the schedules of the HS Mentors.
We are considering doubling up, which would mean a mentor either meets with two mentees at one time, or a mentor meets with an alternating mentee each time. This would create the problem of mentors going over more, while the mentees are met with less. Another problem that we have ran into is that one of the kids isn't sure about being in the program because she doesn't want to be different from her friends. Other than these problems, the program has been going very well. There has been positive feedback from the mentors and our elementary contact! At the end of last semester, we thought we needed to hit the ground running at the beginning of semester two. Luckily, this is what happened.
Most of our mentors are from last semester, but a few are new; and all of them are excited about the opportunity! We started looking at both of our complicated schedules, and wrote down when specific mentors could meet with specific mentees. Our main focus was to keep the same pairs together that met at the end of last semester. This was mostly successful, the only difference is that there are a couple of elementary kids who are not in the program anymore for various reasons. The scheduling was very confusing at first, but we scheduled a mentor to go over on the first Thursday of this semester! That was a big victory for us. The more times our pairs can meet, the better. If pairs meet more often, they are able to build better relationships with one another. Now, for the third quarter, we have all of our pairs scheduled. The schedule is subject to change, but it is a great relief to have everyone scheduled with dates and times. Now, before a mentor goes over to the elementary school, we send them a reminder email. We also send an email to the counselor at the elementary school to remind her who is coming and when. We shared the schedule we made on the computer with all of our participants, but emails are still nice, easy reminders. Over the next two weeks we are planning on getting the activity packets to each mentor. The mentors bring these packets over the first time, and then the counselor will put them in a file for the pair to use each time. These packets are not mandatory, but they are greatly helpful to break the ice. I have talked to a couple of the mentors who have gone over thus far, and both said that the biggest challenge was to get the mentee to talk. Shyness is understandable in a situation like this, so the packet helps erode this feeling away. Hopefully each pair will get to know one another and share experiences. Here is the schedule: Over the past few weeks, we finished scheduling, talked to mentor, and made last minute changes. This segment of time has been the most rewarding out of our whole project time purely because the mentors finally were able to meet each other.
Our biggest problem was that we had 11 elementary students to pair with 9 high schoolers. 5 elementary boys and 6 elementary girls. We were only able to have pairs with the same genders. We had two high school students pair with two elementary students each. At first, this was a challenge because the elementary schedule was hard enough to coordinate with the high school students', but now we needed to do it twice for two high schoolers. Once we had all of the pairs coordinated, we were mostly set. We emailed the social worker (our contact over at the elementary) a list of all of the mentor pairs with what days and time they would be meeting to get her approval. She then approved, and it was on from there. We sent reminders to each of the mentors, and even coordinated a couple of the mentors who did not know each other to ride over together since it would be a little cold. Once this kept flowing, I felt pretty good about the whole process. One problem that presented itself onto us was that one of our mentors did not go over when he was supposed to. We were unaware that he didn't go over until the day after it was planned. The only way we were able to fix this was that we had one of our mentors who had already had a session, go over again to meet a different elementary student. Overall, all of the pairs met with each other and all of the feedback we received was positive. There even was one elementary student who asked her mento when she would be over next ... even though the next time they will meet is after winter break. Now, we need to find out when all of the mentors are available next semester and schedule them from there. We are going to have them meet at least every other week, hopefully more. If this gets to be too much for the elementary students (or even the high schoolers) then we can cut back the meets, but we are shooting for two or more times per month at this point. The beginning of the semester will be the hardest part because we will be configuring all of the schedules together; but once that is done, there really will not be more work to do besides checking that the mentors are going over and that the schedules don't shift for any reason. We are very excited that all of the problems we experienced in the past finally worked out for the better and allowed us to make these matches. This week, we accomplished some vital tasks for our program. On Monday and Tuesday, we compared our high schoolers' schedules with the elementary kids' schedules. This was the most challenging part of our week. NPE's schedule is hard to comprehend, but we eventually understood it. Here is their schedule: After we figured out the schedule, we had to line up the fourth grade, fifth grade, and sixth grade mentees with our high school volunteers... This was our next mess.
Then, once all of the scheduling happened, we ran into another problem. This was that some pairs would only be able to meet once before the end of the semester, while other pairs could meet two or three times. We called our contact over at NPE, and she told us to just go ahead and schedule each pair to only meet one time before winter break. This is easier to schedule, but we would have preferred if each pair had more than one meeting during the next few weeks. During the next several weeks here at the HS, our schedule is different. We have block weeks, which actually works out better because our volunteers have more class time to go over. We took not of the several available dates that each pair would have together, and sent them to each high school volunteer. Now, we wait. Hopefully over break, the high schoolers respond to the email with the date he or she prefers. Here are what some of our chaos from the week looks like once Ellie had to sketch them out. This week, we worked more on the activity packet. The activities we added this week were titled "What's Your Plan?", "Hangman", "Pictionary", "Go on a Trip!", and "Learn Pig Latin!". My favorite activity that we placed in the packet was "What's Your Plan?". This is my favorite because it allows both partners to think about their futures. Elementary aged students probably don't often think about their futures, but high school students do all the time. These activities are meant to start conversations between the two, as stated in the previous blog, and create a better relationship. There are some screenshots posted below of the updated activities.
We have ran into a few problems. Our original idea about matching mentors with students of similar interest is going to be very complicated to do. Our contact from the elementary school told us that only a specific time will work for each student, contrary to what we previously thought about this. The likelihood of having two students with similar interests as well as being available at the same time is extremely low. We may not be able to make these ideal pairs, which was the original idea of this whole program. This week, we started working on the activities that the mentors and mentees will work on during their time together. These activities are aimed to build a relationship between the two individuals. Hopefully, after a few sessions, the two will have a relationship in which they will be able to discuss common interests in their conversations. After the relationship is built up, the two will be able to talk about things that the kids may need to "get off their chests".
The first game is mostly for the two to get to know one another. There are questions such as "What is your favorite movie?" for both the mentor and the student to answer. Ideally, the two would talk about their interests with one another. The second session is a fun one. The student is supposed to teach his or her mentor about something of interest. If the student is very interested in the 49ers, for example, he or she should teach the mentor about this team. This lesson should be effective because the student is able to explain about something he or she is passionate about, and explain why. The third session is to explore the creativity in both the mentor and the student. The two are supposed to write the words "who, what, when, where, why, and how" on a piece of paper. Then, the words are supposed to be cut or torn apart and placed face down on the table. As they flip them over, one at a time, they should build the elements of a story solely off of their imaginations. Then, at the end, the story has all of the details worked out, and they can think about what happens. These sessions are supposed to be fun, but not take up the whole time. They are to "get the ball rolling" and make it easier for the two to have simple chats and discussions. Some images of our "Session Packet" are below... This week, my group and I did some searching for eligible mentors. We first met with the assistant principal about our plan. Our plan was to have him compile a list of names of reliable mentors from our school. He told us that we were allowed to do this ourselves and send the email out.
Criteria for mentors was pretty simple. We first eliminated anyone who was already involved with a different mentor program at another elementary school in the district. Once these names were out, we thought of groups of students who are reliable, responsible, and who set good examples for others. We came up with a list of around 50 students, After we compiled this list, I sent out an email with the "application" attached. This application has the sole purpose of us matching mentors with the kids who have similar interests. The similarly interested matches will hopefully work best in regards to creating the most successful relationships. Next, we will work on creating projects and activities for the students and mentors to work on during meeting days. These activities will first be based on building the basics of each relationship. Small talk, like favorite movies, will be an easy way to get the relationships started. There was a discovery that our program has to be during the day. At first, we thought this would defeat the purpose. Our original purpose was for the program to take place after school so the students and mentors had more time together. After we found out it would not work after school, we decided it would be best to meet with the elementary school counselor to see what she thinks.
Our meeting with her was very productive. Ellie, Mia, and I talked with her about why the program can not be after school, and how we can work around this. The counselor told us that she would love for us to match the kids with mentors who had similar interests, the idea of our application. She looked at the application and suggested a few additions. Once those were made, we were ready for them to be put out to the kids. We realized we needed to act soon. The sooner we get our applications to the elementary school, the sooner we can start our program. The applications were sent to her and the mentor applications were also sent to our assistant principal in order for him to send them out to interested high school students. |
AuthorAustin Wood |