Week 5 Blog

Hello everyone. Hope everyone's doing alright and making it through school ok. First off I would like to give a congratulations to those who led the class tonight (Nick, Kelly, Joe and Deb). I thought they did a good job and portrayed many of the major concepts in both chapter 3 and chapter 4 that needed to be covered. I thought Kelly and Nick did a good job in portraying the five different roles if a peer mentor and also advancing more on them after the small groups talked about what they thought of each role. Joey and Deb also did a good job in getting everyone involved with their skits they created. One of the main concepts that stuck with me after tonights class towards the end, was the part about boundaries. I believe that establishing these boundaries early in the relationship between peer mentors and mentees will further prevent major problems from happening that may develop in the future.

I believe the the stages of a mentoring relationship were a huge part of this chapter. These stages of a mentoring relationship are more or less brought about by questions and these questions remind us not only if we are creating relationships, but establishing our role as peer mentors as well. These questions include: who are you, why are we here, where are we going, how are you doing, what is working and not working, and are we there yet. As time goes by and as we progress through each stage of the mentoring relationship the trust level between a peer mentor and the mentee increase. The question "Why are you?" helps you to remember to get to know your students and give them a chance to know you. The question "Why are we here?" reminds you to be upfront about your responsibilities as a mentor and the ground rules for the relationship. The question "Where are we going?" will make sure to remind you to work with your mentees and set goals and objectives. And last, but not least the question "Are we there yet?" will give you an opportunity to think about what you have accomplished together as mentors and mentees and if you have reached your goals and objectives. I believe that each of these stages are important in the mentoring relationship. If we all follow these stages we can almost ensure good relationships between us and our mentees.