Seven Different Mentors Your Students Need

I truly hope you are enjoying these weekly Thursday Elmore Thoughts.  It is kinda fitting writing about an article on Mentors, written by someone who is my mentor.  It is important to me, even today, to stay in touch with my mentors.  Which leads to these questions;

1. Do you have a mentor?
2. Does your child have a mentor?

Dr. Elmore explains the reason why our kids should have a mentor and the different types of mentors. http://growingleaders.com/blog/seven-different-mentors-students-need/ Tim has found over the years that majority of students say they desire to have a mentor in their life.  That they want someone they could call and bounce a question off of.  Someone that is slow to judge but quick to offer hope.  For a 1st grade student, that mentor may be just you right now.

Gallup released findings from one of their surveys where they found that "Where you went to college" is not as important in your life, as an adult, than, "how you went to college"  What do they mean?  Tim quotes Inside Higher Ed to saying the two key concepts were, "Feeling supported and having deep learning experiences." Tim, later on, states that students who succeeded were the ones who said, "I had a professor or a staff member who built a relationship with me and offered counsel during my tough semesters or uncertain days." If you change the words from professor to teacher and semester to quarters then I hope you could be talking about CTK.  The teachers and I are working on looking at our Mission, Vision, Commitment, and Goals during faculty meetings. I would love to hear a student say we are their mentors.  

When it comes to the seven different type of mentors Tim asks us to examine them for two reasons; 1) To determine which kind we most need in our life, and 2) To determine which kind we are best suited to be for someone else.  Please read the article and look over the seven kinds of mentors.  Discuss with your children the importance to have mentors and start identifying some in their lives.