To me, mentoring has always been a platform that echoed the “give and take” policy. Being a volunteer for the mentoring program hosted by TOP Soccer gave me an opportunity to collaborate and work with young learners full of untouched curiosity. As someone who interns at the writing center, working with children aged 4 to 5 was new and engaging. Finding our way through word mazes and joining the dots to reveal the hidden rhino awakened in me how important attention to little things and individuality are. Unfortunately, this is also what we miss out in classrooms. But hey! What is mentoring for then?
Mentoring, regardless of place and subject matter, has certain characteristics which make the time and energy put into a session worth it. Individual attention brings to forefront individual concerns which when solved makes one a better learner. A one-on-one session gives both the mentor and the student time to focus on little things that are overlooked in a classroom. For instance, a mentoring session could devote time to work through problems like sentence mechanisms.
So, what does this mean for the mentor? Well, it could mean many things like patience and team work. But above all, it is a learning space where both mentors and students are experiential learners, dabbling in conversations and activities that enrich and nourish all who partake in them.
