Section 1: Mentoring in America

Mentoring is a buzzword of the nineties. There are all types of mentoring programs available and every time one surfs the internet there are new sources accessible. Books, videos, TV ad's, and more are expounding the virtues of mentoring. What is mentoring then, that so many see it as a panacea to so many of society's ills?

Mentor was a character in The Odyssey, the epic poem of the wanderings of Odysseus by Homer. While Odysseus is absent, Mentor advises and gives encouragement to his son Telemachus.

Mentoring has a long history from that point on. "In the medieval times, young apprentices learned their craft from expert artisans. These guilds served as a kind of mentoring network. In the late 18th century, charitable societies took hold in many cities during the "friendly visiting" movement, an effort to cultivate uplifting relationships between middle-class volunteers and poor Americans." (Sommerfield, 1996, p.33)

Today's mentors do everything from tutoring children to advising new pastors and teachers.

Mentoring of Adults

In Webster's Dictionary a mentor is defined as "a wise and faithful advisor or teacher". (328) With this definition in mind, mentoring can be at any stage in a person's life. There are many programs that are geared to adults mentoring adults.

In the world of business there are mentors for new workers, advisors to CEO's, and all areas in between. In the August 1997 issue of Quality Digest, on human resource management and development, it says’ "few things have higher priority in managing transformational change than retaining key people and developing people for the future."(Breen, Gregerson, McCabe, Pecora, 40) The article then goes on to explain that to do so the company needs to set up a system to measure and listen to employees and although the "buzzword" mentoring is not used, that is the jest of the system. Other business publications have come out with their own versions of mentoring programs.

The church too, has realized the benefits of mentoring. Quoting from Luke 6:40 that says that, "everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher", Hendricks in his book, As Iron Sharpens Iron, encourages Christian men to find or to be mentors to other adult males. In that way, discipleship and growth will occur. (Hendricks, 1995, p.121+)

In the book Mentoring, by Tim Elmore, the focus is completely on discipleship. He says,

Beginning in 313 AD, when Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, Christians have chosen the easy route, by and large. The Christian faith became institutionalized. Parishes began to rely on the paid clergy to do this kind of ministry. The making of disciples, through relationships, came grinding to a slow crawl. Eventually, Christianity came to be associated with stained glass, impersonal worship services and institutions.

It would seem obvious that our refusal to engage in mentoring relationships(and discipleship’s) as a whole contributed to this paradigm. (21)

Section II. Mentoring in Education

Perhaps no where else has mentoring made such in roads than in the field of education. In a field where almost 50 percent of all new teachers resign or change to new areas within the first five years, the benefit of having an experienced veteran who can give support and encouragement is vital. Other benefits include improved teaching, discipline, and classroom management. (Ganser, 1996, p.36-39)

Another type of educational mentoring is that of Interdisciplinary teams. "Interestingly, the team teachers mostly were unaware of the explicit nature of this mentoring; perhaps this was a function of a deep engagement in daily classroom teaching that did not allow sufficient time for stepping back to think consciously and reflectively about what they were actually learning from each other."(Mills, Powell, 1994, p.24)

Mentoring of Children

Education has incorporated mentors and the mentoring of children in a variety of ways. In the January 1995, Education Digest, several questions are asked, "Do our children get enough science in school? Do they have enough opportunities to do experiments? How can we make science exciting for them?" (RiethJohmann, 1995, p.64) The school uses mentors and works through the PTA, to have an after school science club to encourage the study of science.

Other schools have spin-offs of the same concept. One school in Michigan uses High School art students to mentor grade school children in art. (Morrison, Smith, 1991, p.46-52) Parents are incorporated in another school as research specialists in order to help students "at critical points in their research assignments."(Yoshina, 1996, 26) Nationally, the FFA Organization is encouraging the use of High School FFA members to be paired with elementary students. Using "the natural interest of young people in animals and plants would serve as a catalyst through which an educational component of the program could be delivered." (Gagnon, 1991, p.35)

Telementoring too, is growing in popularity, and on many levels. (Harris, O'Bryan, Rotenberg, 1996, p.53-57)

Even at alternative high schools (Youth) and schools for the homeless, (Gardner, 1997, p.21) mentoring programs have been implemented and have had an impact on the student, as well as the mentor.

Section III. Mentoring At-Risk Children

"In the past, mentoring happened everywhere. On the farm, a boy or a girl was mentored alongside of mothers and fathers and extended family members. From the earliest years, these mentors gave children a sense of 'maleness' and 'femaleness' and taught them what work was all about and how it was done, what character meant, and what were the duties and obligations of each member of the community."(Hendricks, 1995, p.120)

Today, traditional two-parent families are in a serious state of decline. Although the experts can't agree as to the cause, they do agree that children's welfare is seriously suffering from this development. Of course, the families with the least resources and support systems are the ones suffering the most.

Appropriate role models are necessary for children, particularly during adolescence. Yet, in 1989, more than half of all black children, almost one-third of Hispanic children, and about 20 percent of white children lived in single-parent families. The median two-parent family income was $43,578, as opposed to $9,272 for a never married single-parent family. An even more urgent problem is the increasing number of zero-parent children, concentrated in inner cities, where single mothers are becoming crack addicts, going to jail, or leaving their children for other reasons. These children now make up about 9 percent of all children. (Bradshaw, 1995, p.146)

Yet there is hope, for as President Clinton said, "People who grew up in difficult circumstances and yet are successful have one thing in common… at a critical junction in their early adolescence they had a positive relationship with a caring adult."(About, 1998, p.1)

A Big Brothers/Big sisters of America 1995 Impact Study showed that young people with mentors were:

* 46% less likely to begin using illegal drugs.

* 27% less likely to begin using alcohol.

* 53% less likely to skip school.

* 37% less likely to skip a class.

* 33% less likely to hit someone, than children in the research control groups. (About, 1998, p.1)

Finding Mentors

"Currently, 75 percent of mothers with school age children are employed,(Strom, 1995, p.48) so where are the mentors to come from?

"Today’s grandparents are more healthy, better educated, and have more free time than preceding generations. They are an abundant and growing natural resource. In fact, the 55 million American grandparents already outnumber the 46 million elementary and secondary school students." (Strom, 1995, p.48)

The business community too, is an often overlooked segment of volunteerism in society because of the misconception that "business executives are so busy staying lean, mean, and number one that they rarely have a moment to relax, let alone volunteer for community service. True? Hardly, according to new research from the Harvard Business School that suggests that most U.S. executives have made volunteering an integral part of their lives. Moreover, according to the research, executives volunteer for a good reason. Not only do many find it personally satisfying, but such participation also allows them to practice business skills and make professional contacts in ways not always possible through their everyday duties."(Ross, 1997, p.14)

Corporate partnerships have become common too, with employers allowing employees to volunteer at the school during company time. Not only are mentors provided to the children, but so are opportunities to learn firsthand about the world of business. (Eisler, 1996, p.46)

"When employers encourage employees to support education, a win-win situation is established. Employers win by helping prepare a highly skilled, globally competitive workforce; employees win by making positive differences in children's education; schools win from increased parental and community involvement; students win from better education." (Riley, 1996, P.6)

"Each of us can look back in our lives and point to a special person who believed in us, an adult we looked up to, a friend, a mentor. A mentor is any caring adult who builds a relationship with a child, not his or her own, who helps that child work toward success in life." (Difference) As the mentor helps the child, the mentor is in turn rewarded with the joy and pride of sharing the hopes and dreams of a child and being a part of helping them to come true. This is the win-win relationship of mentoring.