Day Two: Finding a Balance

My second day mentoring "Kevin" left me feeling a little..well..deflated. I really thought he and I made a connection on the first meeting and I was so excited to work with him again. He was a little late to class and I was anxiously waiting for him to get there because his teacher said he had a lot to do. When he finally walked in..he didn't even recognize me. I finally had to go up to him and say "do you remember" me before he realized that it was Friday and that meant I would be there to help him. After a little bit of a rough start, we began listening to the lecture about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I was surprised to hear that only a few of the students were able to recognize the significance of January 21st. I assumed that most of the students, being primarily African American, would be familiar with the significance of the day. But most of the students only knew that they didn't have school that day. Our first assignment was to research the significance of the events of January 21st. The next part of the assignment was to find out information about Medgar Evers and what he had to do with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I helped "Kevin" narrow down his google search so that he could find the information more quickly. After the lecture "Kevin" and I went to the media center so we could finish his paper on "what it means to be American".

I struggled to find a balance with Kevin during this visit. His teacher stressed to me that he had to finish his paper that day because it had to go in the grade book that day. I was really feeling the pressure to make sure we finished, but if I left Kevin to write the paper on his own, he wouldn't have even made a dent in it. I struggled to find the balance between telling him what to write and guiding him in the writing process. I tried to give him ideas that he could expand upon, but it seemed that he was only able to type out the idea that I had said, and he couldn't go any deeper on his own.

I want to help Kevin to succeed and get his assignments turned in on time, but I'm just not sure how to do that when he relies so heavily on my input.

Kevin says he is still working on the drawing he promised me, hopefully I will be able to post a picture of it next week!