Feb 6th, 2014
In class we discussed about the responsibilities of each of the mentors. I had the chance to express my concerns about being an "expert". I personally believe that if I am going to teach someone something I need to know almost everything. That is why I have a very difficult time trying to accept the fact that in this mentoring program I do not need to know everything. It was a very discussion because everybody had the chance to provide some feedback about this concern. Besides, all classmates and professor were very supportive. They are going through the similar experience and also deal with difficulties. I find this class environment very rich in terms of what we generate as a community of mentors.
We also discussed about the technical difficulties we may encounter while working with out mentees. If there are issues we can not deal with, then technical staff will help us out to solve those problems. There are several IT services on campus that we can call for support.
Another important point in the discussion was the fact that children and young people are using a lot of apps and devices that prevent them from developing skills such as handwriting and doing mathematical operations in their minds. It is true that technology has come to make our lives easier but there needs to be a balance so we do not end up losing our human essence. This discussion gave us the chance to know that there are certain cultures such as Chinese and Arabic in which the handwriting skills seems to be an art that needs to be taught in order to learn how to read and write.
As we advance in our semester we will be discussing more issues about this very valuable experiencing of mentoring faculty.
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