Do you have teenage children? Do you teach or coach teenagers? Do you work in any way with teenagers?
Some time ago, I heard that a young man I mentored in the late 1980’s had passed away in 2017. I don’t know what happened, and I am still saddened that Agrippa is no longer with us.
Agrippa was a young man of courage and immense talent who came from a disadvantaged background, yet developed strengths that allowed him to fearlessly stand out from the crowd in an apartheid South Africa.
Agrippa helped me plan and organize non-racial symposia. He had an amazing sense of humor, developed superb leadership skills, and taught me so much about what a non-racial South Africa might look like.
News of his death has brought so many memories flooding back.
Life lessons and memories
This has led me to think about the power of mentoring, though mostly in relation to other students who crossed my path over the years, and wondering what they are doing with their lives today, what might have been had they had the opportunity to be mentored when they were fifteen or sixteen years of age?
Unique gifts and talents to be nurtured and encouraged by a non-judgmental cheerleader.
I was reminded of the positive results of an Online Student Performer that one of the early GR8 Mates mentoring program student participants had completed at the end of their trial school-based mentoring program.
The students had completed this task at the beginning of the mentoring journey and again, six months later, when the program officially concluded.
Some ten years later, some of those adolescents, now adults, were probably still in touch with their mentors from that time, as often lifelong friendships are forged between mentors and mentees.
Research clearly states — and it’s obvious why — that mentoring relationships that last for twelve months or more tend to have more positive outcomes than those lasting less than this time.
No-one can argue with that, though I have learnt over the years that, when a volunteer adult mentor and a teenage mentee connect for a season, even if that season is only for six months in a school-based mentoring relationship, much can be achieved.
Why successful mentoring relationships?
In addition to comments from the GR8 Mates mentees and mentors, what emerged from a deeper analysis of the Online Student Performer were the following key points:
- when mentors have attended a minimum of sixteen hours of mentor training, prior to embarking on the mentoring journey, are aware of what is required of them and consistently turn up, week in and week out at school for a six month period, they can achieve a significant amount.
- where the focus has been on encouraging these students to think about their careers and different career pathways, the program has been a resounding success, especially when the students, with guidance from their mentor, set and achieve their personal best goals.
- as the mentees started setting and achieving their goals, they came to appreciate that life is about the choices they make — a self-empowering life lesson! Although Agrippa was not part of a mentoring program, I mentored him, and I think this was one of the life-changing moments for him. He came to appreciate that, no matter how tough life might be, he could choose how to respond.
- Far more was achieved in six months than I could ever have hoped for. However, had we been able to start the program at the beginning of the school year, which we had been unable to do for a number of reasons, I believe these students would have made even more progress.
- although there was a structure to the weekly meetings, mentors had the flexibility to choose what they wanted to do when they met with their mentees. Sometimes they chatted about issues the mentee was having to deal with at the time; sometimes they shared other experiences — the key was that there was positive communication occurring between a volunteer adult mentor and a vulnerable teenager, most of whom were lacking in self-confidence.
- mentors felt supported throughout the mentoring journey. Time was set aside each week after the mentoring experience when, over a cup of tea or coffee and a light snack, mentors shared thoughts, ideas, and experiences. Program staff, as well as a teacher coordinator, responded to questions, offered their thoughts and, most important, encouraged the mentors to keep on keeping on when mentees might be wobbling a little.
The ongoing lesson I have taken from youth mentoring programs, and my own experiences, is that mentoring relationships might only occur for a short season at a time in a young person’s life when they needed encouragement, support, and guidance from a ‘significant other’ in their life, excluding parents — yet they are potentially powerful, life-changing times in those young lives for any number of reasons.
We hope, even though it is not always the case, that the parents will be a part of a young person’s life journey.
Where there are absent parents or the family isn’t functioning too well, it is not difficult to understand why mentoring research continually points to the importance of a young person having at least three significant adults in their lives during their journey through the confusing years of adolescence, while their brains are still developing.
Someone needs to be there for them during these formative years of their education.
The importance of the development of meaningful relationships in the lives of our young people is even more important in the digital age in which we are living, when face-to-face relationships might be lacking the depth to make them more meaningful.
Young people need guidance with regard to understanding body language, and how to verbalise their hopes and fears when they feel safe and secure in the presence of a non-judgmental cheerleader.
‘Artificial’ Intelligence is unable to coach or teach them how to develop ‘meaningful’ relationships.
Remember to speak to the potential you can see in any young person with whom you are communicating. You might just light a spark of hope that ignites slumbering dreams!
I recall asking Agrippa to share his story with students at the school where I was a school principal.
You could have heard a pin drop as Agrippa, who by this stage had completed his University degree and had entered the workforce, inspired students to grasp every moment of their education, and never to accept a second-rate effort. A great man sadly missed.
I cherish the memories of our time together.
Cover photo
Photo by Werner Sevenster on Unsplash
