Benefit Of A Mentor: Disadvantaged Teens Twice As Likely To Attend College

Two findings from a new national study reveal the power of mentors, particularly those in the teaching profession:

•For all teen students, having an adult mentor meant a 50 percent greater likelihood of attending college.
•For disadvantaged students, mentorship by a teacher nearly doubled the odds of attending college.

"Potential is sometimes squashed by the social environment, and the data show that mentors can overcome those forces," said Lance Erickson, a sociology professor at Brigham Young University and the study's lead author.

"Comments from study participants indicate that their mentors weren't necessarily doing anything extraordinary, just being involved and treating the young person as an important human being," Erickson said.

The research will appear next week in the academic journal Sociology of Education. Study coauthor Steve McDonald, a sociologist at North Carolina State University, notes a harsh paradox evident in the numbers.

"Youth who are most likely to need mentors are least likely to have them," McDonald said.

The information above was reported in Science Daily.

Benefits of mentoring for adults

Chuck Slocum challenged adults 55 and over to mentor children (9/21/09). He noted about 300,000 Minnesota children are on road to failure if adults don't help. He made a strong case for the critical need to mentor “throw away kids.” What he didn’t say was how adults can benefit by their involvement as mentors.

Think about it, the only thing better than going to a baseball game is taking along a youngster and helping him or her learn to understand and enjoy the game. Isn’t teaching a kid how to make a meal better than going out to eat on your own? Being perhaps the one enthusiastic fan a child has to watch him/her play their game is far more rewarding than watching millionaire athletes play on TV. And finally, one of the greatest benefits to mentoring is that after you’ve enjoyed time together you get to bring the child home. It is like having the fun of being a grandparent, without all of the parental responsibilities.

It may well be that us older adults need kids just as much, if not more, than they need us.

The above posting was a letter of the day in the StarTribune.