A Personal Account of being a Mentor to a Younger Student

I can’t really say I have been a mentor to others. It’s not very often that you see me giving advice to someone in need, but I have done it before. It happened last year during the first month of school. I was talking to a grade 9 student in the English room. He seemed quite anxious about school. So we were talking about school and how it was quite hard to adapt to this school when a teacher interrupted us and told us to stop talking. The kid really took it to heart because he picked up his pen and started working. I told him, “You know, you shouldn’t take what teachers say so seriously. Take some time to get used to the school before really starting to work.” He didn’t respond to what I said because he was still concerned about the teacher.

I looked over at his tests scores and saw a big 0 on the corner of the page. I asked him if he needed any help and he looked up and nodded. Therefore I asked him how he was handling things, what he thought about the school. He told me he wasn’t doing so good and how he was already behind. He was having a lot of trouble coping with the self-learning system. He also told me his TA interview didn’t go so well and he didn’t want to show his parents that he was struggling that badly. Not knowing what else to say, I told him not to worry, but something inside of me told me to give him some reality.

I told him what my cousin had told me before I came to this school. I told him that if he didn’t get his act together, he would find himself in big trouble at the end of the year. I gave him facts and that if he didn’t like the school now, it would be impossible for him to make it to grade 12. I gave him some advice. I saw how much he was struggling at this point and I knew that if he just tried to accept his struggles and go with the wave, he’d eventually drown. I saved him the time and told him to transfer to a standard school. I told him not to send an application now but wait until after this semester because there would be pointless to transfer in the middle of a semester. I gave him directions to get to his counselor and eventually he was off to another school and I believe that a regular school is a better environment for someone like him. I’d like to think that if I wasn’t there to help him, he’d be yet another Mary Ward student struggling to pass his courses at the end of the year.

This was one of the rare times I have been a mentor to someone but I think I actually helped that kid. I was really glad that I was able to help someone make the right decision. At least now I can say I have been a mentor to someone.

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