Why Mentoring Bright Boys is a Great Use of Your Volunteer Time

My previous two posts discussed how to mentor bright boys but gave short shrift to why I believe it's one of the best uses of one's volunteer time.

Today, we tend to view boys negatively and believe that when bright boys succeed, it's despite their maleness. So, with all the good causes for you to devote your time to, why mentor a bright boy?

Many bright boys today feel neglected. Thanks, in part, to No Child Left Behind, most schools focus on low-achieving kids. Bright ones are too often ignored or made to tutor slow kids. Sure, bright kids derive some benefit from tutoring the slow but making a kid who's reading on a sixth grade level read The Cat in the Hat to a weak student is mainly a way to reduce everyone to the lowest common denominator.

Imagine you were forced to sit bored for six hours a day, five days a week, for 180 school days, for more than a decade. How would you feel? Now imagine that, like many boys, you are active and have a hard time sitting still for six hours. Mightn't you act up? How'd you feel if the teacher (usually a woman who cannot understand why you can't sit there all day) yells at you, gives you bad grades, and virtually forces you to take Ritalin (an amphetamine) in order to attend class?

Would you live up to your considerable potential? Are you likely to enjoy a happy childhood?

For the foreseeable future, the schools will not change. Even though many more boys than girls drop out, and commit suicide, and far fewer go to college, disproportionate attention is paid to girls: for example, curriculum that highlights women's accomplishments and men's evils; e.g., the enormous coverage given to Pocahontas, Sacajawea, Harriet Tubman , Marie Curie, and Susan B. Anthony and to white male tyrants from Hannibal to Hitler to Joe McCarthy. Girls are allowed to wear tee shirts that say, "Boys are stupid. Throw rocks at them" yet no one would even dare make a tee shirt that said "Girls are stupid. Throw rocks at them."

Lest we have a generation of bright boys with enormous wasted potential and who experience great pain, we need fair-minded people, especially men, to mentor bright boys. How about you?

How to Mentor a Kid

In my previous post, I suggested that mentoring a bright boy is a rarely considered but valuable sort of volunteerism. In that post, I also list ways to find a deserving kid.

Here I describe what I'd do if I was to mentor a bright kid, male or female.

1. I'd ask his parent(s) about the boy's strengths, weaknesses, interests, needs, and any issues I need to understand.

2. I'd meet the child with the parent(s) there. I'd, in a minute or so, tell a little about myself. Then I'd ask the child about those same things I asked the parent about.

In that meeting, I'd ask the kid, "What sorts of activities might you find fun to do with me?" If he couldn't come up with any, I'd suggest a few that seemed consonant with who he is that I too would find fun, for example: play with a chemistry set, play ball, visit the library, build a rocket, write a short story together, hike, go to a museum, amusement park, a movie, play, plant a garden, do a science experiment, read a book aloud (perhaps alternating pages--I read for two minutes; then he reads for two minutes.)

I'd ask if he'd appreciate being able to email or phone me if he had something he wanted to ask or tell me.

3. We'd meet either regularly or irregularly, in-person and/or by phone, email, or SkypeVideo.

When it felt right, I'd ask questions to help understand what he's dealing with, practically and psychologically. Yes, sometimes, I'd offer advice. Other times, I'd just play facilitator.

4. If I felt the relationship was insufficiently rewarding to him or me, I'd gently and tactfully sever it and find someone else to mentor. Mentoring is a great gift to a kid and I'd want to give it to someone who is really benefiting from it.

Mentor a Bright Boy

Among the most beneficial ways to volunteer is to mentor a bright boy.

Endless programs exist to mentor and otherwise help girls and women, far fewer for boys, even though boys' school and life performance, relative to girls, has so declined in recent decades. For example, in 1980, the ratio of college graduates was 50/50. Now it's approaching 40% male, 60% female.

I advocate helping bright boys rather than boys in general because the public schools are now so focused on helping the lowest achievers that bright kids' great potential is so often being wasted. They're forced to sit stultified and if they can't, they're too often put on a Ritalin leash.

How you mentor can vary. For example, you could do a recreational activity together: build a model, play basketball with him, whatever. In the process, bring up topics that might help him identify interests, reveal problems, come up with questions to ask you. You could meet once a week or once a month, or not meet at all--mentorship by phone and email counts.

To find a bright boy who could use a mentor, contact the counselor at a local school, the gifted child coordinator in your school district, the principal of your church or synagogue's Sunday School, or simply ask your friends or PTA members.

An Alternative to Advice-Giving

My client said he was reluctant to let his friends know he's looking for a job.

Rather than give him the ol' pep talk, for example, "Friends are a great source of job leads, and don't worry, these days, lots of good people are looking for work," I said, "Pretend you are your twin brother and your brother said, 'I don't want to let my friends know I'm looking for a job.' How would you respond?"

He ended up giving the same advice I would have given.

Then I asked, "What would you say back to your twin?" He said, "I know, but it's hard. I'll be embarrassed to tell them." I asked, "How would your twin respond?" His "twin" said, "Get a grip and grow up." He laughed at himself.

Advice-giving is so tempting but often fails to get results. Where possible, figure out a way to get the person to come up with the advice himself.

Professors: These are worth your tuition?

This was forwarded to me by David Koller. It was a comment on an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Comment 10. By supertatie - April 08, 2010

After 19 years in higher ed, it has been my observation that academics - aspiring and actual - generally have an inflated sense of their own intellectual importance, BUT (and this is significant, in my view) a disproportionately negative sense of the importance of any and every other profession and career choice.

Thus they (like "Charlotte") wax rhapsodic about the ivory tower, and couch in thinly veiled disdain their views of having to do something - anything - else. Which tells you plenty about what they think of everyone else who DOES choose those jobs. ("Well, someone must do them, I suppose," they sniff, waving pale uncalloused hands loftily as they dismiss lawyers, accountants, car dealers, and chefs).

There are so many things wrong with this viewpoint that it's hard to know where to start, but here are just a few observations:

1. If academe is so wonderful, then why do so many academicians spend most of their careers (if the Chronicle is any indication) complaining about teaching loads, grading papers, diffident students, "helicopter" parents, foul-tempered colleagues, juggling parenting and one of the most flexible work schedules in the world, publication requirements, the tenure process, biased peer reviewers, narrow-minded journal editors, knuckle-dragging administrators, and budget cuts? This strikes me as comparable to becoming a garbage collector and then complaining constantly about the smell.

2. If - as has been the pedagogy meme for some time now - humans are or at least ought to be 'lifelong learners,' then why is it not also true that one can be a leader, a teacher, and a visionary in the capacity of something other than a professor? Great litigators shape the law and provide redress for the injured. Brilliant engineers invent things and devise solutions that improve the lives of millions of people. Physicians, nurses and others in the health care professions save lives, and treat illness and injury. Midwives deliver babies. Hospice care workers help people make the transition from life to death (and, one hopes, beyond), chefs feed us, pastors comfort us, contractors build our homes ... the list goes on and on. Every career choice brings with it the opportunity to make a difference, to be a role model, and to influence and impact people. And, I would argue, even more, perhaps than cranking out perfunctorily reams of papers with citations to others' works most of which (let's be honest) have not been read, published in journals that (more honesty here), few other than a handful of peers will ever read.

Here is my advice to those "vane-ly" seeking academic posts: GO DO SOMETHING ELSE. MAKE something. BUILD something. SELL something. Start a business. Provide a good, or a service that other people are willing to pay for. Heck, write a book, if you think you have something to say.

Academia tends to remove those who work there from the reality that at least some of the worth of what they do is or should be measured by others' willingness to PAY for it. They can disregard that necessity that drives most others outside of academe, because the dirty job of coming up with the funds to keep going is handled by advancement, development, or (in the case of public universities), lobbyists and the legislature. True, there are grants to apply for, but persuading a research review committee is a far different thing than persuading the average Joe or Jane on the street to part with their hard-earned cash for what you're selling.

I think that the best thing for a lot of these Ph.Ds without job offers would be to stop whining, go out into the "real world" and get some of the satisfaction that comes from doing something that isn't purely theoretical."

The writer omitted the fact that because the faculty is overwhelmingly leftist and hubristic in their rectitude, they believe all wisdom resides left of center. So, in exchange for students' fortune of money and time, instead of a full-dimensioned education, they spew a truncated, arcana-larded brainwashing.

Some of My More Potent Career Advice

I was musing on what's been working with my clients. Here are three goodies:

Think, "Is this time-effective?" Have a voice on your shoulder always whispering in your ear, "Is this activity time-effective?" Should I do it less perfectionistically? Should I not do it at all or delegate it?

Keeping the time-effectiveness mantra in mind will get you more done, not just because you'll spend less time on many tasks but because you'll procrastinate less--If you're perfectionistic, tasks are long and painful--Who wouldn't want to procrastinate such tasks?

Consider the largest perspective. That helps me in many contexts. For example, when deciding what projects to take on, I ask myself, "What activity will yield the greatest good?" (That's the utilitarian philosophy, my core guiding principle.)

Considering the largest perspective also keeps me from overworrying. When I worry whether I've managed my cash flow during tax season well enough to avoid bouncing a check--say, to the IRS--I say to myself, "What's the worst that can happen? How important is that in the cosmic scheme of things?"

Considering the largest perspective also keeps me from overpreparing. For example, in prepping for a radio show, I keep in mind that it is but one of thousands aired at the same time and that the show will soon vanish into the black hole of forgotten radio shows past.

The final tip doesn't relate to career but it's too short to devote a whole post to, so, here it is:

Buy a category-killer stock on bad news. Toyota is arguably the world's finest carmaker. The day after its sticky-accelerator problem was announced, I bought Toyota stock at 72. In a week it had risen to 80, which is where is stands now. 10% gain in a week? Cool.

Shopping Wisely in the Web 2.0 Era

The tougher the economy, the more wisely we must shop. Fortunately, today's Internet makes it easy to do so.

Step 1. Ask yourself, "Is buying this thing my wisest use of those dollars?" Sure, that new car, furniture, big-screen TV, "real" jewelry, yet another pair of shoes, or first-class vacation would be nice, but what's the opportunity cost? Would the money more wisely be saved? Spent on something else?

Think three times before buying a non-essential on credit.

Assuming you decide you should buy it, this sort of approach to shopping wisely on the Net will work well for many items:

Step 2: Resist advertisements. Disproportionately, a company advertises when its product fares poorly in online reviews and word-of-mouth.

So, for example, Toyota spent little on advertising the Prius because it knew that reviews and word-of-mouth would do the trick. In contrast, carmakers that provide poor value advertise heavily: GM, Chrysler, Mercedes, BMW, Infiniti, etc. For example, Consumer Reports finds that Mercedes in addition to its gulp-inducing price, breaks down more often and requires more expensive and frequent maintenance than most cars.

Other examples: Pfizer advertises Lipitor heavily because much cheaper generic statins are available. Safeway advertises more than Wal-Mart because it often charges much more for the same items. For example, I just bought an eight-ounce bottle of Gulden's Spicy Brown Mustard at Wal-Mart for $1.18. At Safeway, it's $3.65--more than 300 percent as expensive!

President Obama urged us to spend more to goose the economy--He even offered "Cash for Clunkers," to make predominantly modest-income people dump their running cars into landfills so those poor folks can go deeply in debt to buy a new car. I don't believe we--individually or as a society--live the life well-led when we buy what we don't need, especially on credit.

Step 3. Pick your model by googling the product and the word "reviews," for example, "big-screen TV" reviews. (Note I put big-screen TV in quotes so Google recognizes it as a phrase.) Also see if your product is reviewed on www.consumersearch.com, which summarizes reviews from a number of sources, usually including Consumer Reports and Amazon.com.

If my product is not reviewed on consumersearch.com, I visit Amazon.com--it has user reviews of an enormous range of products. I generally value user reviews over expert ones--experts' evaluations are too weighted by bells, whistles, and technical specifications that are trivial in benefit.

Another reason I prefer user reviews is that many more are available, notably on amazon.com. I believe in the wisdom of crowds.

If I need a service, for example, a plumber, I consult sites such as yelp.com, angieslist.com, servicemagic.com, and/or a local gem, Berkeley Parents Network. I don't necessarily nix a service provider because of one bad review--sometimes, it's written by a rare unhappy customer or even by a firm trying to make its competitor look bad.

Step 4. Google the item's model number. That search usually yields Google's product search engine, which reports the price--including shipping and tax--from multiple vendors, including user ratings of the vendor's reliability.

Before deciding where to buy the item, I usually price-check it on Amazon and eBay. Amazon is great because, for each millions of products, it aggregates many vendors' prices (for the item new and used,) has the most reviews both of product and vendor, and offers one-click buying. Amazon even makes returning items easy. eBay is worth checking because its prices, which sometimes are the lowest, don't show up on a Google or Amazon search. (By the way, I predict a merger of Amazon and eBay.)

Today's Internet makes it so easy to buy the best-choice products at the lowest price, delivered effortlessly to your door. There's no schlepping in traffic to stores with no parking--and even if you can park, compared with the Internet, in a store, you're much less likely to find the most appropriate product, let alone at the best price. And returning an item requires another schlep.

Alas, the ease of Internet shopping can tempt us into overspending. Remember, the life well-led is much more about good work, a rewarding avocation, and someone to love.