There is no gainsaying the fact that this computer age that we are in has brought a lot of changes in character, both the good, the bad and the ugly.
Students are sent to school to learn in order to be useful to themselves, their parents and the nation at large. However, no sooner some of them get to schools , their age not withstanding , they shift their focus on other frivolous and negative things which instead of them building and shaping their lives within the four walls of a college, they now turn to monsters and gigolo becoming burdens for the society.
The preoccupation of this piece therefore, is to catch them young when they could be Molded before they become the caricature of themselves’ after being educated.
This is a journey to building an effective and efficient Peer Mentoring in schools. My focus here is on the teenagers(although allusions will be sometimes made on adults) because they would soon become leaders and captains of industries in near future.
Peer helping and tutoring approach in schools have been popular in schools for sometimes now especially in advanced countries such as U.K, US and other ones . We also have a pockets of them in Nigeria, mostly in few of the private colleges.
Peer mentoring is few in our public schools and even in some private schools because some parents like to pamper their children or wards and deprive them of good mentoring in schools thereby making such children delinquent in academic, morals and oher strata of life.
Peer mentoring is a means to building leadership and communication skills in youth, while engaging them in academic activities such as homework completion or test preparation.
Peer counseling is also another common approach providing opportunities for students to work with each other in a number of social and emotional areas. All these approaches are beneficial to the youths, but it is vital to distinguish them from Cross-age peer mentoring whose emphasis is different in structure.
CROSS-AGE PEER MENTORING
Cross-age peer mentoring simply refers to programmes in which an older youth(mentor) is matched with a younger student (mentee) for the purpose of guiding and supporting the mentee in many areas of his academic, social and emotional developments.
It is cross-age because there is a lacuna between the age of the mentor and the mentee which allows for effective role modeling and positions the mentor as a wiser, disciplined, reliable observant , older individual as with adult-youth mentoring.
The programme, ‘’peer programme”,focus exclusively youth-youth relationships.
Outcomes are achieved through the establishment of trusting,mutually beneficial developmental relationships between mentors and mentees.
However, because of the emphasis on the relationship,cross-age peer, peer mentoring programme , primarily uses a on-on-one model ; although many other opportunities abound for a group activities and interactions.
Even though peer mentoring programmes may occasionally engage matches in tutoring , homework help in test preparation or other structured tasks, these activities are secondary to the development of the relationships.
This portends cross-peer mentoring as a broad –developmental interaction, as opposed to’’goal oriented” efforts aimed primarily at improving academic skills, (tutoring) resolving inter-personal problems(peer education), peer assistance), or addressing personal problems(counseling)
The idea is that the high school youth is made to work with the junior mentees. Some of these mentors at times are made to mentor the fresh intakes and they do this throughout the session.
At times, relationships tend to last for the whole school year, when possible, Matches in this school-based programme primarily meet at the school site and often have acces to school resources such as , the library, cafeteria, and gymnasium or playground. They also conduct group activities both on campus and in the community.
To be continued.
Mr. Idowu is the Publisher / Editor-in-Chief of The Interviews Nigeria and a Development Communicator with 10years Experience in Dutyof Care and Child Protection Issues .