CBO Discussion

Kelsey and I both were types of mentors for our CBO experience. I was a mentor and * Middle School and she was a math tutor for a young boy. For this blog I am going to be talking more about my experience with my student at *. My menti seemed to have some family problems. She didn't live with her mother but occasionally saw her but her and her brother lived with her father. She always talks about how his brother is a trouble maker and that she is nervous to go to High School because she doesn't want her teachers to think less of her because of who her brother is. She told me that she was a little dyslexic and that she struggled in school because of it. I noticed this a lot during our interactions. We would play hang man a lot and for example one of her sentences was "I watch my grandma and my cousin get their nails done" but she spelled "I wach my gramma and my cosin get there nales done" I thought that the best way to address her spelling issues was to correct them in a positive way. So when ever we played I just made a list of her words spelled correctly so she could try and remember them. To be perfectly honest sometimes my menti annoyed me and it was a struggle to be a good mentor but I just kept telling myself that this is reality and I might not like all my students 100% of the time but I have to be a good role model and show them the best teacher they deserve and I when my menti annoyed me I just over came my frustrations and sucked it up and kept a smile on my face. I had to adjust my lenses for her. My student was over weight and she mentioned many times that kids made fun of her in school and I had a hard time dealing with this issue and what would be the correct way to go about this issue. I tried to tell her that certain people are mean and that as long as she was happy she shouldn't care what others say but if it ever bothered her a lot then she should talk to a teacher or a school counselor about it. Over all I think I got a lot out of this in what to expect as a teacher dealing with students who do not have the perfect life style or do not have any learning disabilities. The one thing I wished I had for this mentoring position was some kind of training so that I could have been more helpful to my menti and would have had more time to work with her.