About Me
Hi I am Nick Mauro. I am 13 years old and currently I go to Martin Middle School and I am in the 8th grade. Some hobbies that I enjoy are playing sports and videogames. I play three sports soccer, basketball, and tennis.
Mentors are a necessity for some kids. “1 in 3 young people will grow up without a mentor.”(Mentor 2018) True, there are many kids who don’t need mentors, and thus, don’t get any, but, there are those who genuinely need mentors for both educational and psychological support. Many of said children don’t get any. Mentors are people, either student or adult, who help a student in need. The mentor can guide the student in their studies, be a friend, or even play with them. Being a mentor means supporting a student who needs support, but, unfortunately, there aren’t enough mentors
We are interested in helping children of younger ages with their educational needs, and becoming friends with them. We understand that lack of education is a major problem in today’s society, however common or rare it is. Education is more valuable than many people think. In a world with ever-accelerating technology, and knowledge at our fingertips, children need to be able to gather, process, and put information that they gain to use. We believe that Education is a topic that is important to all people around the globe, and should be a topic commonly talked about when problems arise. Now, is one of those times. One day, a world where only the rich few, who are born into a world where only they get mentors and proper education might exist. And in that world, the less fortunate people descend into a pit of uneducation that they won’t be able to get out of without help. This is a world that we are trying to avoid, and the only way we can be sure, is to bring all types of people to equal positions in education. Surely, you want to avoid a place like that, don’t you? The issue is that there are not enough people mentoring, so not enough kids get the education they deserve. This problem as been going on ever since people have started to care about their education and since we’ve transitioned to the digital age. For some kids, learning on a screen is too hard, so when “everything goes digital”, they have trouble learning. They need face to face learning but it is a whole lot harder than it sounds. The cost of a mentor can be expensive, especially for families living off of minimum wage. “kids born into less-stable families are at much higher risk for bad outcomes in life – education, health, income, you name it.”(Dubner 2017) Some kids can’t pay online to be taught by a computer that they can’t ask questions to. You have to take into account that one of the reasons kids get mentored online is because it is a lot easier for the company to be online than having to hire someone and have them mentor. The company will make more money and will take less time to establish a mentoring program. After all, time is money. Other kids, (specifically those who request mentors or are recommended for them, but don’t get any) aren’t able to get the full experience that they could have with a mentor. In Wake County there are many different mentoring programs. Ages vary, but most of the Mentees range from Elementary to High School.(Wake County Network of Care 2018) Many of these programs include educational aspects and also try to help the kids find a better quality of life. A tutor is someone that helps you with homework and helps you study. One thing that makes mentoring better than plain tutoring programs is that the mentor acts like an older sibling or a friend, which helps build a stronger connection. Most mentorship programs around the triangle use mentors. A few of these mentorship programs also help to build a stronger faith. A large part of all of these programs is to have mentors be there for someone when they might not have anyone to support them at home. After our research in the mentorship programs in North Carolina, we found that there are multiple programs helping our community, but we believe there is always more that can be done. We feel that there is still a need for help, even with all the organizations that are helping. What most groups do is help the kids after school. A group like this is the Boys and Girls club. They have kids, usually Elementary School through Middle school age, come to their organizations after school and help them with their homework and studies. They also teach the students structure and learning methods since most kids in this program do not come from the best areas, and thus, aren’t taught such things. We feel that we should go to the schools during the school day and understand how they feel in school. Also, we can actively help them understand the information they are given during the school day, instead of helping them after school. We could also find out vital details such as what makes them succeed and what makes them struggle. As an 8th grade middle school student, I, and other students, can help by offering volunteer mentoring services to youth (elementary school children) at their various schools. At these schools, we could read books to children, help young students with basic math, and more importantly, provide support. The benefits of giving information to the young students or helping them to understand certain information are tremendous. Children with mentors have increased intellectual ability, more self confidence, and a healthier social attitude. There are two major categories where students with mentors profit; academic and non-academic. On the academic side, mentored children can learn to have more, higher quality participation as well as intellectual gains. These children can also learn about future planning and goal setting as well as having more self confidence and a better social attitude. We propose that we send 15-20 mentors to Bugg Elementary for the Bugg Expo. (You can find our action plan here: Action Plan) According to this source, mentoring in a youth school setting is shown to be a “cost-efficient way of increasing the positive relationships students have in their lives, while also having the potential to boost factors that can lead to educational success, such as connectedness to the school environment and peers, improved relationships with teachers and staff, improved feelings of academic competence, and greater access and use of other supports, such as tutoring, credit tracking, counseling, and postsecondary planning.” This site also includes lots of studies about school based mentoring that is beneficial/important information to know. Along with providing support educationally, student mentors can act as friends to support and provide guidance. “Although it takes place at schools, our School-Based Mentoring program isn’t limited to the classroom. Of course, some Littles do talk with their Bigs about class, or do homework, or read together, but it’s perfectly fine to shoot hoops in the gym or play on the playground. At the end of the day, it's really all about starting a friendship, providing guidance and inspiring them to reach their potential. (Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, 2013b)” Work Cited “School Based Mentoring.” National Mentoring Resource Center, 2017. 2018 <http://www.nationalmentoringresourcecenter.org/index.php/what-works-nin- mentoring/key-topics.html?layout=edit&id=182> Bayer, Amanda, Grossman, Jean, and DuBois, David. “School-Based Mentoring Programs: Using Volunteers to Improve the Academic Outcomes of Underserved Students.” Aug. 2013 24 Jan. 2018 <https://www.mdrc.org/sites/default/files/School-Based%20Mentoring_Programs.pdf> Gordon, Janet, Downey, Jane, and Bangert, Art. “Effects of a School-Based Mentoring Program on School Behavior and Measures of Adolescent Connectedness.”School Community Journal, vol. 23, no. 2, 2013 <https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1028864.pdf>Accessed 26 Jan. 2018 Dubner, Stephen. “When Helping Hurts” Freakonomics. July 12, 2017. January 29, 2018 <http://freakonomics.com/podcast/when-helping-hurts/> “Mentoring Impact” Mentor. 2018. Jan. 24 2018 <http://www.mentoring.org/why-mentoring/mentoring-impact/> “Wake Network of Care Mentoring Program” Wake Network of Care. 2018. Jan. 24 2018<http://wake.nc.networkofcare.org/mh/services/subcategory.aspx?tax=PH -1400.5000> “Benefits of Mentoring” Mentoring Partnership. 2018. Jan 26 2018 <http://www.ncmentoring.org/about-mentoring/impact/> https://www.dur.ac.uk/hr/mentoring/mentoringguidelines/mentoringbenefits/ Mrs. Cowan at Bugg Elementary School [email protected]
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