“Perspective is reality.” That quote reminds us of how powerful our perspective is in shaping how we look at the world around us. Our perspective is shaped by many things, including: personal experiences, outside voices (like parents, teachers, and mentors), and our own personal belief systems. As mentors, we have the opportunity to help shape our students’ perspectives of their world when we meet with them every week. Here are a few ways you can do that this month:
- Help them distinguish between truth and lies. Students can create a lot of personal tension and stress when they choose to believe things that aren’t true about others or themselves. As we listen to our students, it’s important that we help them see the difference between what’s fact and fiction in the world around them.
- Share your personal experience. As adults, we have a bigger perspective on life simply because we have more life experience. This gives us as mentors the opportunity to help shape the perspective of our students through sharing some of our personal experiences (especially shared ones).
- Ask good questions. Sometimes, students can feel stuck. Maybe they feel hopeless or defeated or overwhelmed. Good questions can often help get them un-stuck. If your student is really stuck, try asking them questions like: what’s been happening? have you thought about…? what would happen if you did that? what are you going to do?
Written by Jason, BTO Mentor