On Thursday night, I went to the "meet and greet" for my mentor program with Open Books. It's probably not cool to mention the name of my student, so I won't. But the name of the high school affiliated with our VWrite program is probably public knowledge, so it can't hurt to mention it. It's Gage Park High School. The scene of two shootings in a two week time period. Some thoughts about my experience there:
1) I was a bit apprehensive about going into such a "danger zone." Then I realized that I was there for all of two hours, walking a scant distance between teacher parking lot and school door. The student that I'm mentoring walks 15 minutes in that same "danger zone" two times a day, to school and home. EVERY day. Wow.
2) My student is quite a fashionista. And I'm already proud of that.
3) My student is really, really into basketball. I know almost nothing about it. Gonna have to educate myself in this area to faciliate our communications and to try to form a bond. So who is really "mentoring" who?
4) When I was 16, I was primarily interested in walking the halls of Bishop Carroll, forever on the lookout for the boy (or male teacher) who was my crush for the week. College? Yeah, I had to go, but it seemed so, well, distant. My student has been devoting her free time to looking at college websites since her freshman year of high school. Wow again.
Overall, I'm filled with a sense of optimism and promise. And the realization that I stand to learn as much (or more) from my student than she will from me.
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