The Importance of One-on-One Mentoring
By ES class of 2012, Current BrainBuilders student |
Fri, 21 Oct 2011
“Emma, when you receive an assignment at school, always try to find out the learning objective. Knowing why it will benefit you actually helps you to learn the material,” Mrs. Stewart explained. Then she asked me to explicate a poem by Robert Frost.
“Why?” I asked--and we both laughed.
Unfortunately, most American high school students do not have an educational mentor like I do. In fact, many studies and reports conclude that the American educational system is broken and inefficient. Reading and writing scores on all levels are declining and the consequences for our nation are dire. Because of educational failures now, when my generation reaches adulthood we will suffer from the economic consequences of underemployment due to inadequate education. In addition, some studies show that the undereducated are less likely to volunteer, start businesses, and contribute to society.
Because I have had educational experience with one-on-one mentoring, I believe that the one-on-one model can address some of the current educational system’s deficiencies. My mentor, Sue Stewart, runs a one-on-one educational mentoring business called BrainBuilders Gymnasium. She works with high school students to strengthen their thinking and speaking skills, reading comprehension, writing and vocabulary, cultural literacy, creativity, and most importantly, stellar character qualities such as humility and self-discipline. Her goal, beyond that of most educators, is to “nurture intellectual maturity.”
For the past four years I have met with Mrs. Stewart for an hour each week and over the years our friendly mentoring relationship has provided the “glue” that helps me understand the interrelationship of history, science, and literature. She stimulates my curiosity, not by making me take notes or performing a lab, but through Socratic discussions on everything from black holes and String Theory to the “If” poem by Rudyard Kipling. She boosts my intellectual confidence through conversations about books like The Scarlet Letter and Crime and Punishment, as well as current events like the Japanese tsunami and the Middle East uprisings.
In addition to academics, Mrs. Stewart has mentored me in the moral, spiritual, and creative intangibles of life. We’ve discussed boy/girl relationships, as well as angels and demons in The Screwtape Letters. Mrs. Stewart taught me how to crochet, how to write poems that model Emily Dickinson’s, and how to get back in touch with the fun of learning.
More one-on-one mentoring programs are springing up every day to make up for deficiencies in the bureaucratic educational system. Widespread individual education for everyone in the near future is probably not a possibility, but because education is seriously declining, time and technology will catalyze non-classroom educational solutions like Cram Crew, Princeton Review, and BrainBuilders. Non-classroom solutions can help me score well on tests, but only holistic approaches like BrainBuilders will benefit my life long-term. Because I have been required to ask the big questions and to think about their answers, I understand now that “education is not about what you get for it, but who you become by it.”
