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Student
Mentor
 Being
a mentor is a tough job, just ask Obi-Wan Kenobi (right). You have
to help the pupil with your wisdom and experience, while displaying
unwavering patience. This is especially difficult, for example,
with a self-assertive student not willing to listen and, as they
say, flirting with the dark side. You do not have to be a Jedi mentor
and swinging a light-sabre to realize the amount of dedication needed
to train for tomorrow's leaders. These following seven articles
all provide sage insights on how to be an effective guiding force:
Mentorship
by Michael Young
Interviewing
Vincent Gu by James Chu
To
be a Mentor by Michael Tsiang
Being
a Student Mentor by Ernie Bedoy
Interviewing
and Being a Mentor by Michael Young
Student Mentor by Tammy Lo
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by Michael Young
Being
a mentor isn't all it's cracked up to be. Though it gives
the character great power, to a certain extent, it comes with
great responsibility.
Teaching kids is a difficult job, because they take you for
granted (especially when you are one of their peers). It takes
a great amount of patience and work to train your students,
but with a little of both, the task is not impossible. But,
the comforting part of the job is to remember that you are
not alone, and that there are others taking on the same challenge,
just as you are.
Yet, in a point of view where you are the shortest, and one
of the youngest mentors, the wor.k gets even harder. The work
gets tougher because I, of all mentors, am even shorter than
some of my very own students, and that makes trying to control
my students insane because they probably don't appreciate
taking orders from someone smaller than themselves!
But in the end, being a mentor means staying strong and being
a leader. Therefore, I can't look at my weakness and let them
control me, I have to stay strong and use my strengths, with
any luck at all I will stay on top. And so being a mentor
is hard; it looks easy but it really isn't. Being one requires
a lot of work, patience, and time.
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Interviewing
Vincent Gu
by
James Chu
Vincent
Gu is a student at North Hollywood High. The fifteen year
old mentor, who was selected by Mrs. Yang , found out that
being a mentor-to-be is a lot of work. Being a mentor meant
you had to be responsible, organized, and knowledgeable in
cooperating with other students. Vincent feels that his job
as a mentor is a lot of work, but fun. The hard part about
being a mentor is calling students, answering questions student
might have, organizing activities, and working with younger
students. The fun part is ordering students around, making
new friends, and earning community service. His motivation
is influencing teenagers with leadership. Vincent said, "I
encourage everyone at leadership program to try to be a mentor
for at least a semester, because it is a good experience in
responsibility and organization."
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To
Be a Mentor
by Michael
Tsiang
Being
a student mentor takes a lot of time and responsibility. I
have been a student mentor for three semester now and I have
to say that the job is very difficult without the cooperation
from the students. The students are the most important part
of the mentoring portion of the youth leadership training
program. If there were no students, why would you need student
mentors? Between every meeting, we (the student mentors) have
to call up ours students and remind them of any special events
that may be scheduled in the upcoming weeks, as well as make
sure that they know how to perform the job that was assigned
to them. We also answer any questions that the students may
have about the program or their assignments. Being a mentor
is a very big job, but fun as well.
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by
Ernie Bedoy
I
am Ernie Bedoy, student mentor for Mrs. Yang's class.
I took the leadership class for one and a half years before
deciding to mentor.
During that time, we generally learned how to do four important
things:
1. How to overcome the initial nervousness everyone feels
when they are called upon to speak before an audience.
2. How to organize and present our ideas logically and convincingly.
3. How to improve our ability to listen to other people's
ideas and evaluate them
4. How to develop self-confidence that will radiate in every
situation involving other people.
After developing those skills, I felt that I was ready to
be a student mentor. Mrs. Yang on the other hand still felt
skeptical upon that topic. Finally after weeks of opposing
the idea of letting me become a mentor, she gave in and granted
my position as a mentor.
 As
a mentor, my job was to call my students and remind them about
their jobs given to them at each meeting. I'mto explain to
them what their responsibility is and how each job given is
supposed to be carried out during each meeting. *I didn't
do any of this. At each meeting, when a briefing takes place
I am suppose to turn in a sheet of paper explaining what I
did to help my students. Help them? What's that? Unfortunately
I have yet to learn. Overall leadership is a great experience
and I have learned a lot, but one thing that everyone says
I never seem to have learned is " HOW TO GROW UP !!!"
*Note:
Since Ernie was too lazy to finish the last portion of his
article, two editors, Mei-Feng Chiueh and Brian Hu, decided
to take the liberty of finishing it for him. =Þ Hehe!
About
the author: Ernie had since graduated from the program is
now a senior film major student at University of California
at Santa Barbara.
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INTERVIEWING
&
BEING A MENTOR
by
Michael Young
There
is nothing like being the one in control. You have people
groveling at your feet and servants doing your every command.
Is it really this simple? To find out the truth we asked
one of the mentors in the Youth Leadership Training Program.
"Well, not really," says 14 year old mentor Michael
Young. "Being in command isn't as fun as you think,"
he says, "with power comes great responsibility."
Contrary to popular belief, being a mentor is a lot more
difficult then people would  expect.
Why? "On the outside," Michael says, "the
students see the leaders and advisors in the class. However
behind the whole semester project, there are around 50 phone
calls, total, per week just discussing the set-up and current
assignments. But what's worst is that the junior and senior
mentors find themselves in a constant struggle for time
to do their assignments and still finish their everyday
homework."
Michael however, doesn't seem to have this problem. He,
having the greatest amount of extra time, has a bit longer
assignment per week. "Instead of being a regular mentor,
and having three or four students per semester," Michael
says, "I have the responsibility of calling every mentor,
in edition to two regular students, and making sure they
know their responsibilities for the week. But that's ok,"
he continues, "because I, unlike most of the other
mentors, have the spare time to do this."
So we asked Michael, why he continues to be a mentor? "Though
it's a little more work, it's kind of worth it. Being a
mentor, first of all, looks a lot better on a college application
then being a student, I suppose in some cases, it gives
you more authority, and sometimes, mentors get into expensive
shows for free."
In conclusion, Michael also adds, "Being a mentor isn't
really as glamorous as it looks, true it has its ups but
it also has it's downs. So before a student goes off to
become a mentor he or she should really ask themselves if
they are sure they are ready."
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by
Tammy LoTo
mentor or not to mentor? That is the question. Welcome to the wonderful
world of mentors and mentor training, otherwise known as mentor
workshop. To fully understand what a mentor is, let us first look
at what a mentor really is.
Webster's New World Dictionary defines a mentor as a wise advisor
or a teacher or coach. Here at Call for Youth Leadership, we take
that definition a step further. Our mentors not only teach and advise,
but they also act as role models and inspire many of our younger
and less experienced students. And besides that, our mentors know
how to have fun.
The mentor workshop is just like it sounds like. All of the newly
elected mentors of that particular semester come together to learn
and share ideas about the duties of being a mentor. It's not just
about telling students what and what not to do. Nosirree. A mentor
must knoweth what he teacheht. OK, enough of that. But seriously,
a mentor must first be familiar with the program in order to pass
on his or her knowledge. The mentor workshop serves to touch up
on the lesser known parts of CYL, as well as to enlighten the novice
mentors on how to work with new, stubborn, and shy students (Haha!
That was me before!).
 The
mentor's main job is to help the average CYL student in his or her
time of need. For instance, if a student does not know how to start
a speech, her mentor to the rescue! If a student does not understand
the duties of a grammarian are, not to fear, his mentor is here!
Thus, a mentor helps his or her student in every way possible (no,
I don't mean that the mentor actually writes the speech for the
student…unless some money amount was involved…now that's
a completely different story.) The mentor is also a role model for
the beginner student. By the end of the semester, we leaders at
CYL hope that every new student is thinking about their mentor,
"Wow! I wanna be just like her!" and not "Oh my gosh!
That guy was a FREAK!" We have first-hand accounts from students
talking about their mentors.
The mentor must also keep in contact with his or her students. This
does not mean yelling across the street, "Yo James! Did ya
write yur speech yet?!?!" This means that the mentor has to
call his or her students every week to check up on their progress
and to see if they have any questions. During class, the mentor
should aid, whenever possible, the student and help encourage and
inspire the student.
Mentoring is a major step towards great leadership. Mentoring helps
give us the experience of taking charge of unfamiliar and foreign
situations, as well as meeting and interacting with new people in
the exciting world of communication. Mentoring is not a simple job:
only the fearless dare try it.
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