Mentoring

I started mentoring about 4 months ago. I thought that I would be signing up for a program where have a one-on-one relationship and can help guide a kid through life. The program I signed up for is so short of male volunteers that I got 4 mentees. I have to figure out what to do with 4 high school kids now. I had these grand dreams of grooming and instilling my wisdom on one child with a lot of one-on-one time. Well that just won’t work out for 4 kids because I don’t have that much free time. Even after finding out the large ratio I decided to commit to the one year program.

I am to spend a minimum of one session a month with the kids and help them with the Capstone project.
The program is supposed to teach the kids a variety of life skills including money management (saving) and career selection. The first session was just to see who would actually showed up. I got 3 random kids that would not end up being my mentees. We talked about hopes, dreams and what they wanted to do with their lives. It was fascinating talking to them because I could hear an echo of my thoughts through these kids. I could hear myself thinking the exact same thoughts when I was their age. Then life beat many of those thoughts out of my head. I asked all of them how many hours they wanted to work each day; all three of them said 14-16 hours a day. You get the idea of what kind of answers I would get the rest of the evening.

The third session was on Election Day November 4th. The mentees asked me whom I voted for and I explained to them that it is a secret ballot and choose not to tell them. Not wanting to cut off the lines of communication I did explain to them how I selected my candidate. I explained to them that it was the selection of the lesser of two evils. All candidates are trying to get votes at election time, so the promises are always to make people happy and upset as few people as possible. The two presidential candidates had huge spending plans and did not do a sufficient job of explaining where the money was coming from. I explained that it is a zero sum game, the money has to come from somewhere and that would upset some group of voters so candidates spent very little time identifying the funding. The mentees are 10 graders studying civics in school and heavily supportive of Obama. One of them sits up proudly and says he knows where Obama will be getting the money. I encourage him to tell the group. He says that Obama will tax big business. So I ask him “Is this a good idea?” I can tell by the body language of the mentees that they seemed to be very eager to agree with this source of funding. The surface level thinking is “Sure it doesn’t come out of my pocket”. I tell them that big business is not a bottomless pit and that companies must make a profit. I ask them what happens if the company can no longer make a profit? Are there other countries that have lower taxes? I asked them what happens if a company decides that they should no longer be based in the US? I noticed a definitely deflated body language. I asked “Do you think it is a good idea to increase taxes on business?” Not expecting an answer I help them understand that we can not spend more than we make or else we end up in very heavy debt, like the country is in right now.

Even though I am not able to mold one disciple into thinking the way I do, perhaps I still can do some good to a larger group. The effect may not be quite as deep on any one child, but maybe it will be enough to guide them through life.

Are you smarter than a 4th grader?

Today I recalled an elementary school contest/assignment, as I was considering how fast dry ice disappears out of our Styrofoam coolers at work.

Essentially there were no other instructions for the class contest other than the objective. The contest was to see who could build the best design to slow the melting of an ice cube. I am pretty sure the word build was in the assignment. The teacher had not told us how the designs would be judged.

If you are like me take some extra time and have some fun designing it in your head. I would like you to stop and take two minutes to think about how you would do it before you continue reading.

My 4th grade design was to take polystyrene foam (normal people would call it Styrofoam) and create an insulated box. Bind the box with glue to make the seals. Take that box and wrap it with insulating film and tape that up. Before the final preparations water was put in the container and then seal it. The whole thing went in the freezer and became an ice cube in the freezer.

The teacher took the designs out of the freezer that morning and gave us the results later in the day. The teacher said that the way the winners were judged was by the size of the ice remaining when she saw it later in the day. The second and third prizes went to two people that just used a store bought cooler. That irritated me a lot because the assignment specifically said to build something. Depending on how you looked at it either they cheated, were really lazy did nothing and grabbed the cooler at the last moment. The alternative way of looking at it was that they were brilliant and managed to get away without doing the assignment and got a really good grade and prizes for doing nothing!

So that brings me to the first place. Guess who came in first place? Everyone had started with whatever sized and shaped ice cube they put in the design. The teacher was so excited that my ice cube was almost the same size as when it started. I pondered this skeptically, thinking wow I am better than I thought. When I got given back my design realized that there was definitely a difference in perception. The cube inside my design was about the size of an ice cube coming out of a tray. The glue did not hold up to the melting process well and fell apart, letting the melt water leak out of the container. Since the teacher had not specified on the size of the ice cube I had broken no rules and felt no need to inform her of this. She never asked what size it started as. Mine just happened to be a bit bigger. I was definitely not willing to be beaten by the cheaters that put no effort into the project. What the teacher did not understand was that originally the ice cube would have been 3 times that size.

The moral of story is to be very precise with your specifications.

Drafted!

Tis the season to be jolly! A time to celebrate. So what happens when no one want to organize the festivities? Conventional wisdom would say that you let the people that are willing to do the work have the fun and everyone else can reap what they sow. An admin had a different take on this. By gosh we are going to make them celebrate whether they want to or not! So the solution was to encourage people to work on the planning committee. So what do you say to an admin when he pulls you aside and personally encourages you to do something? Well I guess that would depend on how painful it would be and how interested you are in the organization. It did not even take more than 3 or 4 sentences for me to understand the situation and for me to complete his thoughts. So I was ready to enlist as soon as he popped the question. I figured it could not be that painful and I would much rather spend my political capital on the important issues I have a habit of bringing up all the time.

Although no threat was ever needed to be made an intelligent person always knows that these invitations have the implied connotation of you know what’s good for you. I accepted so enthusiastically that I practically jumped up and down (almost). Those that have heard my some of my more floral speech patterns know I can make quite a show. In hindsight I have thought up a few more colorful statements that would have made the speech quite fluffy and impressive, but what was presented was not bad for being conjured up in an impromptu moment.

Being the rational critical thinker I immediately start asking the specifications as soon as I am done stating how energized about being able to volunteer for such a fantastic opportunity. I am told we have no funding for this task. While it is similar to how I will be elected to the HOA board, the difference is there will me no money to execute this task. Life is always simple when you have no options; conversely this task will be easy. The choices are do not spend any money or do not do anything. Wait it gets better. We are not supposed to ask for donations either. So do not spend any money and make sure you do not let anyone help you.

The admin that had encouraged me to be on this committee has decided that he will not be on the committee. The number one practice from "The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership" is “Model the way”.