MENTORING is a common way for businesses to encourage staff down the path to self improvement and perhaps key roles in the organisation, but it can also be effective tool for school students.
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The goals will be different but the strategies can be similar - a more experienced person, usually an older volunteer becomes a sounding board for someone who wants to develop.
In the case of Canobolas Rural Technology High School, the mentors it recruits may be helping students set goals which will one day see them holding leadership positions in the workforce and community.
But the starting point will be more modest ambitions, perhaps doing better in the classroom or even staying in the classroom when the temptation has been to leave or not turn up in the first place.
So what sort of people make good mentors?
They may not be the choir boys and choir girls who never faltered in their own school days. They could be adults rich in life experience who have come to see the value of education and contributing to society the hard way.
These mentors could still be working or retired but interested in helping young people by listening and showing rather than telling.
The call for mentors to offer their time and insight provides one of those opportunities for adults who now have an appreciation for what life has given them to offer that to someone else.
The fact that their young charges face challenges and distractions not unlike those they faced themselves could lead to rewarding conversations and the satisfaction that comes with giving up time for someone else.
Mentoring is not for everyone, and not everyone who would make a good mentor might have the time to make such a commitment but for those who do the rewards could equal any which come from paid work.