Teachers: Make time to collect the reflections of a near-peer for your students. Here's a procedure for gaining a Virtual Mentor for your students

I have written about the importance of virual mentors -- adults who can have impact on students without visiting the class.  More than two dozen students have read words by John, who cooperated with submitting materials for the Virtual Mentor book... and John never visited that school. 

How to Become a Virtual Mentor: Helping school ...

www.amazon.com/How...Virtual-Mentor.../dp/1484816285‎

Amazon.com

 Rating: 5 - ‎1 review - ‎$3.80

How to Become a Virtual Mentor: Helping school personalize the learning [Steve McCrea] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. We know that ...

You've visited this page 2 times. Last visit: 12/5/13




======================  




Here's the procedure:  Look for a university student who can explain a decision, such as "Why I decided to study vet medicine and become an animal doctor."

This young fellow has turned his back, at least for now, on university. He's just not ready.

I heard that a fellow (19 years young) wanted to leave university...




On Apr 22, 2014, at 9:00 PM, David C. Lloyd wrote:

Good to hear from you Steve, below should be all that you need and if there's anything else just let me know.




Audio Script:

Hi, my name is David Lloyd and at the end of this year I will be leaving university to serve in the United States Coast Guard




What were you doing when it suddenly hit you that you could do something else besides university at this moment?

Since the start of college I had changed my major many times, according to what I couldn't do, what others thought I could do, what might help pay for school, and what I thought I might want to do




What helped you make the decision?

The thing that drove me to this ultimate decision was two fold, the first and most pressing was that economically I felt as if college was not a good path to be taking as secondly, I wasn't entirely sure of what I wanted to do and was just wasting precious time and resources maturing in a setting which may not have been right for me.




What did you read or see on TV that gave you the balls to be true to yourself?

What got the ball rolling was when payment for second quarter came rolling by and I just thought to myself, "my lord, I can't keep doing this"




How scary is it to be on a path that is not traditional?

Although it may feel scary at first, Im the type of person that enjoys having a plan laid out for me and now that I know what Im doing and where im going, for a few years at least, it puts me at ease.




Cheers,

David Lloyd

E-1 DEP USCG







That's what teachers of the future do...  we get "near peers" to give a mini-lecture.




Here's what I wrote to David:




I love what you’ve written.




I took a gap year between high school and college and then, even at 19, I wasn’t sure.  I did the same as you, changing focus, so at 20, after one year of college, I went to learn French in Provence.  Oh, yes…  many delays after that … I was 29 before I got my bachelor’s degree.  




Thank you.




Would it be possible to give your email address to my students?







I will tell them “No more than one email per month, only one question per email."

visualandactive@gmail.com




It is so cool to see USCG...







I encourage you, reader, to send me a letter addressed to David and I'll forward it to him.




PROCEDURE

a.  ask questions

b.  post the response on a blog (so that students can find the information)

c.  collect the questions and mail them as a group to the near peer mentor (so he can sit and answer the group of questions in one sitting).

I'll chronicle here the types of questions that they ask David.