Dan’s Leadership Page

After School Student Mentoring: The ADS Dream Buddy Program!

Afterschool Program Coordinator? Sure!

Toward the end of last summer, our principal asked me if I would take on the role of after-school program coordinator. Guided by my own nature to never shrink from a challenge and my ever-present desire to help students, I readily agreed to take the job.

Uncovering a Need: Quality After School Academic Support

The American Dream School (ADS) after-school program operates Monday-Thursday from 3:45pm-4:45pm and accommodates approximately half of our approximately 250 person student body. The program’s most popular offering is called “homework time,” which, as the name suggests, is meant to be a place for students to do their homework.

In my role as program coordinator, I quickly discovered that “Homework Time” was not fulfilling its purpose. A single teacher and 12 or more tired, needy, and sometimes rowdy students were not the best ingredients for good quality homework help. As a result, most students left for the day without receiving the help they needed. Sadly, many of these same students would go home to parents who were also unequipped to provide good quality academic help.

Filling the Need: Student Volunteers

I was convinced that ADS middle schoolers — if not all of them, at least those who were struggling the most — deserved the opportunity to receive quality homework help. Unfortunately, budgetary constraints prevented me from hiring more adults, and our location in the South Bronx and late afternoon hours made it difficult to recruit volunteers. However, if adult help could not be come by, student help was still a possibility. In fact, ADS Middle School is connected to ADS High School, and in ADS High School, there were surely students who could act as tutors and mentors to our academically struggling middle schoolers. In a way, this option even seemed preferable to recruiting random adult volunteer homework helpers, as most ADS high schoolers had already gone through our middle school and were familiar with both the student demographic and the type of coursework typically assigned. The closeness in age could also produce a more meaningful mentor/mentee relationship than I had even originally anticipated.

Logistics: Organizing Student Volunteering

After a brief chat with the after-school coordinator at the high school, I learned that one viable option was the newly formed Honors Society, which met twice a week at the high school. Unfortunately, the Honors Society was disbanded before we had a chance to organize anything lasting, and I was back to square one. Determined not to give up, I kept in touch with the after-school coordinator and sent frequent email follow ups in an attempt to find another group of students who could fill the gap.

Soon, I learned that an organization called ASPIRA, dedicated to developing leadership and academic potential in Latino youth, had a chapter at the ADS high school. A brief talk with the ASPIRA mentor revealed positive news: she had spoken to her high school members, and they were willing to dedicate one session per month to mentoring ADS middle schoolers. The mentor would take care of getting permission slips signed and walking high schoolers to our middle school. I would handle the rest. She also had a clever name for the program. We would be called the “Dream Buddy Program” and the high school aged ADS “Dreamers” would mentor their middle schooler ADS “Dreamees.”

While only one one-hour-long mentoring session per month was a far cry from what I had originally envisioned, it was a start! After some work on Google Sheets matching mentors and mentees and a basic Slides presentation, we were ready for our first meeting.

Incorporating a Literacy Element

Based on the guidelines for this ECLI leadership project, I had to incorporate some kind of literacy element into this program. I had difficulty envisioning how I could bring a meaningful literacy component into an already brief one hour mentoring session. Luckily, I leaned on the support of my mentors in the ECLI. Chris and Terri both had similar ideas: I could lead the mentors and mentees through some kind of brief writing prompt that could spark a connection between mentor and mentee.

Lo and behold, Chris even had a specific suggestion for the first session that resonated with me: to try “what I wish my tutor knew.” I’d had great success with the “What I Wish my Teacher Knew” prompt in my 6th Grade Humanities classroom, and Chris’s sharply honed teacher ninja sense knew that this prompt could also work in a mentor/mentee context.

With that valuable email nugget from Chris, I now knew that the writing prompt that would inaugurate the Dream Buddy Program would be “What I Wish my Mentee Knew.” The high school mentors would write it before even meeting their to-be mentees, and they would present it out loud upon meeting them later on in the first session.

ADS Dream Buddy Program: Day 1

In spite of a late arrival from the high schoolers, we got off to a great start. We brainstormed expectations for the program. I shared my model “What I wish my Students Knew” prompt. The mentors-to-be quickly began writing.

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Having finished their “What I wish My Mentee Knew” prompts, each ADS mentor was now ready to meet their ADS Dreamee. After exchanging phone numbers and a few “getting to know you facts,” the ASPIRA Dreamers shared their “What I Wish my Mentee Knew” writing responses out loud with their new middle school mentees.

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It was over as quickly as it began. I set up an ADS Dream Buddy WhatsApp Chat group to encourage communication between sessions, and I eagerly awaited our next in–person session.

“What I Wish My Mentee Knew”: Student Samples

While I didn’t have a chance to check in with students about the experience writing and hearing the “What I Wish My Mentee Knew” prompts, I did collect some student samples.

While I wish I could have spoken to the students about their experience with the prompt, I think the writing speaks for itself. It shows the potential for vulnerability, empathy, and emotional closeness in a mentor/mentee relationship of the sort that the Dream Buddy Program could establish. It shows powerfully that ADS high schoolers may be uniquely equipped to mentor our academically struggling middle schoolers in a way that no other group of people could.

Coronavirus: Online Zoom Tutoring!

Unfortunately, we were only able to fit in one Dream Buddy session before the coronavirus caused a state-wide school shutdown. While this of course put an end to in-person mentor/mentee meetings, it has opened up new possibilities.

Pre-Coronavirus, a majority of the most academically vulnerable students did not have access to a laptop with internet access. Now, every ADS middle schooler AND ADS high schooler has a laptop with internet. They are all familiar with the Google infrastructure (Classroom, Gmail, and Calendar) and they are all comfortable with using the Zoom platform to meet virtually. Also, academically strong high schoolers who were previously engaged with other tasks were now stuck at home. Now they would be available to provide support more than once a month to students who, given the new reality of virtual learning, could use academic guidance more than ever.

I sent a quick Google Form survey out to our high schoolers, and I got eight enthusiastic replies. I then reached out to eight middle schoolers who were eager to receive extra support. This Sunday, I will be hosting EIGHT 1:1 Zoom tutoring sessions between academically gifted high schoolers and academically struggling middle schoolers.

Future Possibilities

I’d like to continue the ADS Dream Buddy Program in person next year. I think the “What I Wish My Mentee Knew” writing alone speaks to the type of meaningful connection that can be built between middle schoolers and high schoolers who are members of the same community.

Inspired by the new normal, I’d also like to incorporate a virtual component. In addition to our once monthly live sessions, I’d love for our high schoolers to commit to Zoom tutoring our middle schoolers once / week on a weekend. Facilitating this would require middle schoolers to have laptops again (they are currently slated to return their laptops post pandemic), but I think I could make that happen.

I would also like to think more about how the literacy component could be enriched as the in-person sessions continue. In fact, if tutoring happens online on the weekend, perhaps even more attention can be devoted to writing during the in–person sessions.

Final Thoughts

I set out to solve the problem of inadequate after school academic support. While I have not reached a durable solution to this problem, I am inspired by what did become possible as a result of the Dream Buddy Program. Fellow community members came together to provide a unique solution, and many more students are receiving help in our community now than ever before. I also witnessed the power of writing to initiate an extremely meaningful relationship. I really look forward to seeing what blossoms next.