What I'm Learning From Mentoring

You know how I mentioned a few months back that I was starting Ninniachel Mentoring? Well, I still am working on that. I actually have a couple of students now. It took me a long time, but finally I have some people to help.

This has brought me an increased awareness of my strengths and weaknesses as a mentor. 

So, let's start with my weaknesses:

It turns out I am really bad at remembering to prepare for lessons. Sometimes it will be a lesson day and I will have to prepare as quickly as I can in the few minutes before we start the actual lesson.

This is completely remediable, and also a grievous fault that I should correct. 

Next, I tend to think that everybody has the same attention span that I have. This doesn't work so well with my 6 year-old student. At all.

Third, I get a little bit upset when people don't finish their homework or seem like they are listening. I don't show it, but I am working on not even feeling it. (It does give me more appreciation for how my mentors must feel when I sometimes don't submit things for a couple of weeks after they are due. Oops.)

Now, my strengths:

I love people. I love getting to know them more as people and working on individualizing their curriculum. I am teaching writing to my 11 year-old cousin right now, and seeing her individual writing style (as well as her personality traits) has been awesome.

I love the subject matter. Right now I am teaching writing and piano, and I am thrilled to be able to share these.

I am committed to actually teaching, instead of giving up. Yeah, I could improve on my consistency a little bit, but I think that is mainly because my current students are family and it seems impossible to develop a schedule with them.

I am passionate.

This has been an adventure so far. It has really shown me how much I don't know, and I want to work on that. I am so excited to continue.