Mentoring is threatening to become a buzzword without meaning. We hear about mentoring for principals, for teachers, for students, for employees in a wide range of businesses and industry. There is mentoring by principals, by teachers, by students, by corporate executives, by members of the community. There is mentoring designed to help adult  mentees  (an ungraceful word) be better administrators, teachers, practitioners, or employees; to help youth adjust to society after incarceration or institutionalization; to do better in school, take good care of their children, not get pregnant in the first place, stay out of jail; stop taking drugs-and on and on

Freedman, Marc

Jaffe, Natalie

English

The University of Nebraska, Omaha

A Valuable Resource ~l{et,n .. ~ 2 CD C>~ t; o.e .,.. c:EE~ .9 "'8 ~ Cii!la:-~· cD:g t:.CD> -.Et•g <( z c:C:'E~ -<Do...:• -cucn'5fi! c:._ma. .Q .E ;1;..; (ij C1) (/) "7 .,.. '·-N Att~ P Elder Mentors: Giving Schools a Hand By Marc Freedman and Natalie Jaffe y,7(p (Nu. £)'1'1) {J~ ~)--C1 '""5v '1 0 3 I Matching retirees with troubled " youngsters in mentor programs is~ cost-effective way to proyide young people with much-needed adult role models. M entoring is threatening to become a buzzword without meaning. We hear about mentoring for principals, for teachers, for students, for employees in a wide range of businesses and industry. There is mEmtoring by principals, by teachers, by stu-dents, by corporate executives, by members of the community. There is mentoring designed to help adult "mentees" (an ungraceful word) be better administrators, teachers, practition-ers, or employees; to help youth a<ijust to society after incarcer-ation or institutionalization; to do better in school, take good care of their children, not get pregnant in the first place, stay out of jail; stop taking drugs-and on and on. How-to books and· articles also abound. Many of them pre-scribe mentoring as a cure for a whole variety of ailments, and The ideas in this article are based on those in Marc Freedman's report, Partners in Growth, (Philadelphia: Public I Private Ventures, 1989) arid forthcoming book, From the Goodness of Our Hearts: The • Emergence of Mentoring Programs for Vulnerable Youth. Mark Freedman and Natalie Jaffe are on the staff of Public I Private Ventures, a not-for-profit program development and research orga-nizatif;n in Philadelphia, Pa. 22 .,.,,:,;;~~-..:-~:--L few point out that the little we do know about the process indicates that it must be specific both to the nature of the pairing, and to what it is meant to accomplish. This article discusses one speci~c type of mentoring: the matching of retired, older persons with young people enduring a crisis period in their lives. It is based on a study by Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) of five intergenerational mentor pro-grams, three of which involved the public schools. , 'T'h0 'l"'C'n~hing-T .0nrning Communi-ties ('1'-LC) Mentoring Program in Ann Arbor, Mich., and other cities assigns elders as mentors and tutors to junior high school students who are in danger of dropping out. It stresses the arts, career awareness, personal goal setting, consistent school attendance, and educational excellence. School Volunteers for Boston-which is similar to programs operat-ing in 3uch urban' areas as Los Ange-les, Dallas, New York, and San Fran-cisco-places elders in classrooms and after-school programs to tutor at-risk youth in basic reading and math skills, and participate in a vari-ety of mentoring activities. The Teenage l'urent AILernnt.ivo Program (TAPA) in Lincoln Park, Mich., pairs Foster Grandparents with teenage parents. The elders help teach the young mothers about parenting and health care for their child, and also watch over the child while the moth-er is in class. The programs involve white and IJ!A/ C) 0 ll-f q ~tbb black elders and serve a similar blend of participants. The majority of the young people are from lower ·income families; the elders are pri-marily working and middle class. Why Mentoring for At-Risk? Perhaps more than any other insti-tution, the schools have been called upon to promote students' social adjustment, a role formerly played by the family. However, schools are held primarily responsible for pro-~oting cognitive development and often don't have tho resources to devote to the socializing task. The promotion of social adjust-ment is also limited by the fact that schools are age-segregated institu-tions: adolescents are not only segre-gated from adults, but even from slightly younger and slightly older youth. This structure facilitates the specialization of curriculum, but severely inhibits developing broader experience. Few adult models are available, especially from the older generation. Studies by education scholar Joseph Galbo show that stu-dents rarely select teachers as sig-nificant adults in their lives. And counseling ratios in most urban areas are in tho vicinity ol' GOO stu-dents to a single counselor. And yet, an accumulation oflongi-tudinal research suggests that adult relationships-not only with parents and teachers, but with grandpar-ents, neighbors, and other interested adults-are a common factor among children who achieve success despite growing up in disadvantaged and stressful circumstances. · In the search for cost-effective approaches to providing the con-structive adult relationships that might give1a boost to more youth, older adults have intriguing poten-tial. Elders are the fastest growing segment of the population, may be relatively inexpensive to employ, and are themselves in need of oppor-tunities for socially productive actiVity. There is considerable intu-itiv~ appeal to the notion of bringing together these two segments of the population for mutual benefit. In an effort to discover whether this notion has more than intuitive appeal, P/PV embarked in 1990 on a series of research projects and a demonstration, toward which the first step was the study whose find-ings are outlined here. Strong Bonds Between Elders and Youth More than half the pairings studied showed significant relationships that provided benefits to both partners. They divided into two types:·primary' relationships characterized by attach-ments approximating kinship; great intimacy and a willingness on the part of elders to take on the youth's full range of problems and emotions; and secondary relationships, in which elders served as helpful, "friendly neighbors," focusing on positive rein-forcement but maintaining some emotional distance. There is a strong basis for these bonds. Rather than being dependent -~-4 .:._.;...~2---- ·------· on "chemistry," the alliances seem to occur when youth are receptive-when they feel alone, at a time of cri-sis, or when they are ready for change and desirous of adult contact-and elders are enthusiastic and often inter-ested in finding meaningful roles. The elders interviewed felt a spe-cial empathy that appears to derive from the marginal status they share with youth in our society. They also appeared attracted to fulfillfng the "elder function," the propensity of the old to share the accumulated knowledge and experience they have collected. Mentoring ability appears to be more easily expressed in the senior years of age. --··· ·----·· Perhaps one of the study's most striking findings is that the most effective elders were people who had not lived what would commonly be considered "successful" lives. Many had endured strained family rela-tionships, struggled at low-paying jobs, and battled personal problems, such as alcohol abuse. Partly as a result of surviving-and surmounting-such difficulties, these elders seemed to understand the youth, and were able. to commu-nicate with them from their own experience: Evon in inAtnncoA whoro Aignifi-cant relationships did not form, but where sustained contact with older adults occurred, some benefits from. the elders' presence appeared to result. The elders became an impor-tant part of the environment, help-ing to create a caring and humaniz-ing setting for the students. They L added diversity to the classroom and the school day. Significant relationships went a step further, principally in two areas-day-to-day quality of life, and basic skills. • Day-to-day quality of life. All the youth in significant relationship~ reported improvements in their dai-ly lives, which they attributed to working with the seniors. The young people said theyfelt better, enjoyed the time together, and looked forward to meeting~, This appears to be critical and not just a "I(Jcl good" cflcct. The youth val-ued the chance to talk with someone -who is not a parent or a teacher, who is not judgmental, and who is pay}ng close attention. The chance to talk allows the young person to reduce stress and gain some perspective. Christopher Jencks argued 15 years ago for improving the quality of school experiences for youth even without evidence that such improve-ments produce long-term impacts on achievement. And, in When Teenagers Work, Greenberger and Steinberg (1986) restate the case. • Basic skills. Along with emotional benefits, youth in significant relation-ships cited learning tangibly from the elders' teaching. One learned how to uppr·ouch muLh more effectively; another progressed from a D to an A in history; a third learned how to dress and respond appropriately in a job interview. ·The benefits youth derive from the elders' instruction and example result from the relationship as well as from the elders' skills, largely because the youngsters are trusting, engaged, and interested-in other words, in an emotional state con-ducive to learning-and because the partners are together long enough for progress to be made. Skill acquisition is also furthered by the elders' concern with account-ability. They check in predictably, they notice when assignments and promises are unfulfilled, they applaud success. Because the elders are obviously pulling for the teen-agers to succeed, they seem to appreciate rather than resist being hold accountable. In the primary relationships, additional benefits were produced: • Stability. The elders promote active coping on the part of the . youth in three ways: instrumentally by being there and standing up for them; emotionally, by caring about what happens to them; and cogni-tively, through interpreting events. • Competence. The elders encourage a sense of competence principally through developing an appreciation of abilities they already possess. • Access and advocacy. The elders take it upon themselves to help teach the youth how to navigate "the system"; for example, how to interpret job listings and find finan-ciul uid for college; how Lo loL tho teacher know that the student is working hard and grasping the material; where to go to find a job. • Maturity. The elders promote the maturity of the teens by taking them seriously, requiring them to make their own decisions, practicing being an adult. Fostering Relationships The elders' success with the young people appeared to be attributable not only to their own qualities and · the receptivity of the youth, but also to some deft decisions by the pro-grams. Merely adding occasional adult contact to a conventional pro-gram will not produce substantial ties and benefits. 1. SUPPORTING THE ELDERS' RoLE The programs support the elders' role/by allowing them to function autonomously, making their man-date clear, and providing appropriate staff and administrative support. • Autonomy. At their most effective, the programs resist the impulse to treat elder mentors as paraprofes-sionals with carefully prescribed functions. Rather, they emphasize getting good people and turning them loose. They also avoid over-training the seniors, but encourage them to rely on their good instincts. • Mandate. Effective programs also encourage the elder mentors to use their autonomy to play a b.road developmental role, with their pri-mary focus on the growth of the: f"Oung person, rather than the :tccomplishment of specific tasks. • Support. Given tllis mandate, the ~lder mentors require strong and :onsistent program support, through ·egular meetings with each other to liscuss common issues and prob-ems, an opportunity to form a com-nunity with other elder mentors, lefinition of their status as stipended ·olunteers rather than "employees" ::::....M~,,,\,~;.:. __ •__ i..,_L.:~~.::. --· of the program or school, and assign-ment to a mentor of a variety of youth with a variety of problems, in order to avoid burnout. 2. MAKING THE CONNECTION The research also suggests five principles for programs that aim to encourage the development of signif-. icant relationships: • One on one. Regular opportunities for the mentor and youth to meet pri-vately are essential for the yohth to feel that he or she is special to the adult. It apparently does not matter to the young people that the elder may be working with other young-sters, so long as they get their exclu-sive time and attention when they·· are together. • Purposeful. Each contact should be structured around something of importance to both parties; it should not be artificial. Building or learning something together is the best exam-ple. Addressing a specific task gives something for these strangers to talk about at first, as they work toward a deeper level of understanding. • Length, frequency; and continuity. Although strict formulations are not possible and change over time, some basic rules can be suggested: once-a-week contact appears to be enough as long as participants really get a chance to talk; once a month is insuf-ficient. Closeness can be established in three to four weeks with some • youth, but most take two or three months to open up and feel trust. Continuity and consistency are essential; young people desperately want a reliable adult figure. • Open-ended. The programs in which older people make a commit-ment to stay with the youth "as long as they are wanted" appear to be most effective, even though the rela-tionships rarely last for more than oneyear .. • Environment. The most conducive environments avoid impersonal or public institutional settings and allow for privacy and relaxation. Meeting on the youth's own territory is often desirable; it helps to focus the relationship on meeting the youth's needs. The T-LC program is 'another example: it has taken over a class-room it calls the mentor center, filled it with living room furniture and pri-vate spaces, and serves doughnuts. Students call it "the oasis." Conclusion In closing, we would like to take note of three relevant developments since the P/PV study of five inter-generational programs concluded in 1988. First, in its recently published study, Volunteers in .the Public Schools. (1990), the National Research Council found that strong school volunteer programs receive enthusiastic support from top admin-istraton; and teuchor~:~, and huvo n volunteer coordinator. NRC also found few school programs that use community people to help with guid-ance activities, and few elderly vol-unteers. Perhaps this group would be a good resource for the volunteer coordinator to tap. Second, as part of its extensive adult/youth relationships research agenda, P/PV has begun assessing the:components of the I Have a Dre~m (IHAD).project in six Wash-.. ington, D.C., area schools. We have found that the school-based coordi-nators of the program and the men-tors have been welcomed by admin-istrators and teachers as well as by the students involved. F'urther, since concluding the intergenerational study, the primary author of this article surveyed men-tor programs of all types around the country. Beyond the potential that formal mentoring may have for helping individual youngsters, he identified a number of areas of broader significance, one being the role played in schools by full-time coordinators employed to administer the mentoring component. While ostensibly coordinators, these people become primary mentors-often of more significance to the youth than their designated, volunteer mentors. The coordinators' success seems to emanate from their proximity to the young people. They are present each day, their offices become a car-ing refuge, and they have time to talk. Soon youngsters who are not even part of the mentor program begin gravitating to these oases. Socinlly, tho coordinntorR tend also to be close to the youth: most "came up" the same way as the young people, oftenin the same neighborhoods, and understand their circumstances more easily than outside volunteers. The project coor-dinator role may represent a back door reinvention of the school social work01·, n viotim ofburlgnt cnl:~ nnrl the focus on ·academic basics that has been a legacy of educational reform. Its return may well. be one of the major legacies of the nation's current love affair with mentoring. References Galbo, Joseph J. "Adolescents; Percep-tions of Significant Adults." Adolescence, Summer 1983. Greenberger, Ellen, and Steinberg, Laurence. When Teenagers Work: The Psychological and Social Costs of ·1 28 NASSP Bulletin/January 1993 Ado[p,qc(m f /i:mJ7lnymf!nl. Nnw York: Basic Books, 1986. National Research Council. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1990. Rutter, Michael. "Psychosocial Resilience and Protective Mech-anisms." American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, July 1987. Werner, Emmy E., and Smith, Ruth S. Vulnerable But Invincible: A Longitudinal Study of Resilient Children and Youth. New York: McGraw Hill, 1982. \ \ l EFFECTIVELY DEALING WITH TODAY'S ISSUES Register Today for an NASSP Institute! • CULTURAL STYLES AND CHANGE STRATEGIES: LEADERSIDP IN SCHOOLS OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY Keystone, Colorado February 14-17, 1993 • LEARNING TECHNOLOGY IN ACTION! LEADERS IN THE FIELD: CNN, TCI, CARROLLTON HIGH SCHOOL Atlantic, Georgia February 21-24, 1993 • EFFECTIVE DISCIPLINE PRACTICES WORKING IN TO DAY'S SCHOOLS New Orleans, Louisiana February 28-March 3, 1993 • NEW DESIGNS: PORTFOLIO PARADIGMS AND BLOCK SCHEDULES Vancouver, B.C. March 10-13, 1993 • THE NASSP CASE-IMS SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PROCESS Denver, Colorado March 21-23, 1993 • AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT: NEW MODES OF MEASURING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT Bermuda March 28-April 1, 1993 • Send for INFORMATION, DETAILS, REGISTRATION NASSP OFFICE OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMEN'l' 1904 Association Drive Reston, VIrginia 22091-1537 (703) 860-0200, (800) 253-774~ av+ C)A'7/()..fO / I ; 

Elder Mentors: Giving Schools a Hand

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Elder Mentors: Giving Schools a Hand

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