How to be a good mentor in the first three months
The honest answer is that you mostly listen and keep showing up. Here is what our program director tells every new mentor on their first Saturday.
Stories & notes
Written from inside the building.
Practical notes for mentors and families, write-ups of what actually happened on a given Tuesday, and the occasional argument about how nonprofits talk about their work.
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How to be a good mentor in the first three months
The honest answer is that you mostly listen and keep showing up. Everything else — the advice, the college talk, the hard conversation about a suspension — only works after the kid has decided you are actually going to be there.
Everything else
More from the organization
What the homework lab is actually like at four o’clock
A room of kids, four tutors, one printer that jams, and dinner starting in the next room. A weekday afternoon written down as it happened.
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Employers: what a summer crew placement really involves
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Alumni night, written up by an alum
A graduate came back to the building for the first time in four years and wrote about what had and had not changed.
Why we do not publish impact statistics
A plain explanation of what we measure, what we refuse to pretend to measure, and how we talk about the difference.
Enough reading
The building is more convincing than the blog
Come to a program night, or start the mentor form and we will talk this week.