Park School

Old Court Road

Baltimore, MD 21022

Contact:

David Tracey

DTracey@parkschool.net

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Program Summary

Park School’s Mentor Program

 Overview

             Since 1998, The Christopher O’Neil Memorial Fund has provided substantial financial support for Park’s Mentor Program. Mentors are Upper School students trained as peer-educators to team-teach in the sixth grade life skills classes. The intent of the program is to encourage critical thinking and discussion about social and emotional issues students face, the processes by which they make decisions, the forces that influence their choices, and the options available.

Within the last year, Mentors have expanded their role in our health and wellness programs. They collaborate with faculty on seminars offered for parents of fifth, seventh, ninth, and tenth graders and on the Park Connects Program. Click here for Park Connects.

            Throughout the year, Mentors meet weekly during a scheduled activity period. They arrange for guest speakers to visit their life skills classes, read literature and research about adolescent behavior, and discuss current affective education topics. Dave Tracey, School Counselor and program faculty advisor, along with select Middle and Upper School faculty, train and support these peer educators.

            At the end of the first semester, Mentors take part in a two-day off-campus retreat, where they use their readings and personal and class experiences to create lesson plans for life skills classes. They also learn about developmental issues, teaching methods, and classroom management.

            Following the retreat, Mentors develop a syllabus and ten lesson plans. The range of topics may vary, but generally includes: risk-taking, managing stress, alcohol and other drugs, cliques and popularity, dealing with cruelty, self-advocacy, and identifying ways to help a friend. As schedules permit, Mentors meet prior to each class to review the lesson plan in detail. In the second semester, Mentors team teach the ten life skills classes.

Beliefs

 . . . We must take action individually and as a society to protect the health and wellbeing of others and ourselves.

. . . We each have the responsibility to identify the things we can change in our surroundings and ourselves.

. . . We are all connected, and thus our actions, the actions of others, and the actions of the greater community matter to all of us.

 Goals  

1.      To assist students in understanding that as unique individuals, they must learn to make decisions appropriate for themselves and for the world in which they live.

2.      To help students understand some of the physical, social, mental, and emotional factors that influence the health-related decisions they will face.

3.      To insure that students understand their responsibility in making appropriate decisions.

 4.      To provide students with the information and skills to improve the health and wellbeing of themselves, their families, their friends, and their communities.

5.      To have students understand that health decisions affect and are affected by at least six interrelated contexts: self, family, friends, workplace/school, community, and the world.

6.      To encourage students to help one another adopt health-enhancing behaviors and to value seeking additional support from friends, family, other important adults, and professional caregivers.

 Anticipated Acquired Skills

  Mentor class material and activities develop a framework for students to have ability to:

1.      Examine one’s health beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.

2.      Analyze situations and actions to assess the degree of potential risk.

3.      Understand basic social pressures.

4.      Interact with others, listen with understanding, consider health needs, and express concern for the health and well-being of self and others.

 Participant Information

 Over 100 students have participated in the Mentor program since its inception in 1998. In the 2004-05 school year,  there were 24 program members. Each year the educational aspects of the program are modified based on the interests and strengths of the collective members. Evaluations by the sixth grade life skills students at the year’s end consistently speak highly of the Mentor experience.  Students readily identify specific classes that were meaningful to them and individual Mentors who were particularly helpful. Interestingly, a large percentage of Mentors join the program because of their Middle School experience with their Mentors.

Two comments consistently made by Mentors in their May program-improvement evaluation were their greater appreciation for their teachers and their perspective of how limited their social skills were in Middle School.

            This year we captured our program on film, entailing several hours of activities and interaction. Students edited the hours of footage to create a fifteen-minute DVD describing the Mentor program. We intend to use the DVD for presentations and are pursuing the possibility of posting it on the web.