Today I'm excited because my guest post on the core value of responsibility went live at Free Spirit Press. Click the graphic below to check it out.
What's your favorite way to help your learners rock responsibility?
One thing that helps us nurture the virtue of responsibility is our Peer Assistance and Leadership (PAL) mentoring. Specially-trained high school students come to us every year to support and mentor a younger student. This morning, one of them came back for a visit while on Fall break from college classes and sent the heart of her young PALee (and mine!) soaring.
I was so blessed to get to see, hear, feel and experience their
happy reunion.
For the last fifteen years, I would singlehandedly read all of the bios of the teen mentors and them pair them with my students. This year, we decided to try something new: A PAL draft. So instead of me doing the pairing, I asked my students to fill out a "What do I want my PAL to know?" draft card. Then, today, I spent an hour with our new batch of PALs, sharing the cards and letting them choose the child whom they will mentor this year.
Empowerment in action.
As you might imagine, we ran out of time, so Round 2 of our draft continues tomorrow and I can't wait. Do I have the best job or what?
I work as a Swedish educational and vocational counselor at a junior high school and would love to know more about how this PAL-program works. Between what ages are they mentoring? Are the high school student from another school that your school collaborates with?
ReplyDeleteCan I find a model for this program online somewhere?
Our high school students enroll in a PAL class for a credit. Here's the link to more info on that curriculum: http://palusa.org/
DeleteStudents in grades K-8 are all eligible for a PAL; this year there will be 26 traveling to our school for a thirty-minute mentorship visit once a week. Our younger students thrive on those visits!
Thank you :)
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