Mentor Perspective

My perspective for this week has been shaped by a scholar’s reaction to a change in the size of his mentoring group. This brought new challenges during our session that took precious time to handle.

On Tuesday, Keyon and I were the only two individuals partaking in our usual math session. I had grown accustom to teaching in a certain way based on our group including Keyon and Diamond. In fact, without Diamond present I assumed things would go more smoothly since I could focus my teaching on one person; however, this was certainly not the case.

As we moved through the lesson, Keyon started to lose patience and pay less attention to my teaching. I didn’t know why this was happening, but it was. Things got so bad half-way through the lesson that I had to stop and think about how to change the path we were on. I asked him if he wanted to take a five minute break and he agreed.

At this point, I realized that our lessons go well when Diamond is present for two reasons: the group has more of a social dynamic, and competitiveness is present between the two scholars. Both of these features help them pay better attention. On normal days, Keyon, Diamond and I joke and socialize about relevant events in our lives in between teaching points, and this keeps the group focused. This may sound contradictory but it prevents scholars from getting restless. Our group also has small competitions to see who can solve math problems quickest, or most creatively. These features help to ensure that both scholars focus on the key points in the lesson.

As we started up again, I made an effort to compensate for Diamond’s absence and talk to Keyon more frequently and joke around a little more. I then introduced a competition between him and myself, structured in a way that created a level playing field and really brought out his competitive nature. Both steps helped get us through the lesson, but I’m still surprised at how such a seemingly insignificant change to the session could cause the situation it did.

It’s impossible to predict which changes to your group/session/etc. may negatively impact a scholar’s reaction to the lesson you are teaching; however, now I will be more aware that such problems can crop up and better able to react quickly the next time something similar to this happens.


By Mr. Gary Brooks