My
focus is youth mentoring and the need for more adult participation. Being a mentor and working in a high school
has shown me there are skills, abilities, and experiences children could learn
from a wide variety of people.
Being raised in a military household taught me many lessons in life that I feel have made me the man I am today. During my mid-twenties, with spare time on my hands, I decided to become a mentor through Big Brothers Big Sisters. This decision would be life changing in more ways than I ever imagined. Mentoring youth in need is more than a noble cause, but rather an opportunity to provide a young boy or girl with insights and knowledge as they grow up and navigate the world. My mentoring experience partnered me with a 6 year old boy, Chris, with no father figure in his life. Male relatives were present for Chris, but his mother was seeking something different in his life. When I met both of them for the first time, I do not believe any of us were ready for the experience. I was thinking too linearly, the requirements of the program called for certain things and that was my expectation. Chris’s mother seemed to feel the same way as we wo...
This course taught me to provide a space for my students to discuss what is happening in the world around them and how to do so in a manner productive for all people who wish to contribute to the greater good. I enjoyed hearing everyone's thoughts, opinions, and seeing the diversity represented makes me more aware of providing the same kind of opportunities in my school. There are teachable moments in all the books and readings; my sociology students are going love discussions based on them. The most interesting thing I am taking away from class is conversation surrounding the space of public opinion and what public discourse looks like to a kid in high school today. I think this will be great for students to ponder and the learning that can come out the conversation will be very informative. Thank you to everyone in the class, enjoy your summer!!!
To think of leading public intellectuals today was a difficult task. I say this because I spend so much of my time trying to determine how I will convey information to an audience that quite often needs to be entertained more than they want to learn. For me, educators carry a certain amount of the intellectual weight simply because they have an unknown audience that looks to them for information and wisdom. My parents used to was a program called the Tavis Smiley Show when I was younger. Listening to them have conversation about the topics and issues Tavis Smiley presented as well as the people he would have on his show is something that I think helped me to grow. It is not that he was a leading intellectual, but he would raise issues and questions that could be answered by intellectuals which I then saw discussed by my parents and others. I feel that there need to be more of these discussions today so children learn to speak up for themselves and issues...
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