Have you ever had a mentor? Most of us associate this idea with something we experienced as children. Take the Karate Kid, for example, whose mentor had him painting fences “just so” to ingrain an essential karate movement into his inner being. Of course, the Kid thought he was just painting boring fences. Not so. In the critical “ah-ha” moment, he faces his opponent in combat, and comprehension descends.

Or the other martial arts guy, “Grasshopper,” who became a Kung Fu master by learning to catch flies with chopsticks, and forever afterward experienced his teacher’s wisdom in audiovisual playbacks during times of crisis.

I experienced nothing quite so mystical, but my first mentor was my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Kay Sillaway. I spent third grade, or all the important parts of it, singing and marching to original tunes by Sillaway, along with the rest of my class. For any 8-year-old with ants in his pants and a “can belto” vocal style, this was the class to have. I had no idea I would regard her as my most important teacher, even later, when I became a music major and a teacher myself.

When I discovered after 41 years that Sillaway had a past of which I was completely unaware as an 8-year-old, I also had an “ah-ha“ moment. Sillaway spent her early years as Kay Weber, big band vocalist and recording artist. She was discovered at age 25 by Glenn Miller, and she eventually joined the Dorsey Brothers and the Bob Crosby orchestras.

Gov. Mike Easley proclaimed January “National Mentoring Month,” and he is encouraging support of state-sponsored mentor screening, training, and assignment programs. Through the North Carolina Commission on Volunteerism & Community Service and the North Carolina Mentoring Partnership, the governor’s office recruits prospective mentors. Public service announcements on television and radio frequently remind listeners of the benefits — volunteer opportunities for them — that will also benefit children.

The “Change the Outcome — Mentor,” and other campaigns have been sponsored in part by large corporations such as Pepsi and Duke Energy. According to the North Carolina Commission on Volunteerism & Community Service website, mentoring is now heralded as a “prevention strategy,” and promoted in “all grants and funding involving youth.” Besides state funding, the Volunteerism Commission has encouraged business and faith-based partnerships for the training and support of prospective mentor volunteers.

The National Mentoring Partnership describes a mentor as follows: “A mentor is an adult who, along with parents, provides young people with support, counsel, friendship, reinforcement, and constructive example.” Among the characteristics of mentors they list “good listeners,” “people who care,” and “people who want to bring out strengths that are already there.”

This sounds right. But can someone really learn to do these things online, using the Learn to Mentor Toolkit? According to the National Mentoring Partnership, someone can. Some of the “tools” in the mentor training kit include:

• Personal Reflection page — looking for memories of significant adults; analyzing why they were interested in you; looking for qualities you want to imitate as a mentor.

• One Role, Many “Hats” page — imagination exercises where someone pretends to take on different roles; imagine the “hats” he will wear as a mentor.

Since the two people about to be paired in this planned relationship are basically strangers, there is an abundance of “getting to know you” material. Workbook pages direct the exchange of specific personal information, ask questions about feelings, mission statements, agreements, use “relationship checkup” guidelines, and the like.

Sample questions for the child/mentee include an “If I Could Be Anything” page, which asks the child what he would want to be if he could be a cartoon character, insect, musical instrument, famous painting, celebrity, famous landmark, automobile, shoe, bird, or animal. The worksheet describes this exercise as one that will, for the mentor, “provoke some thoughts about what your mentee could be.”

Training, and screening through the appropriate agencies, are mandatory components of this type of community service.

People whom I would identify, on reflection, as mentors, never set out to be community volunteers in my life. Had they been required to follow a state-sponsored training and screening program, the experiences might not have happened. Institutionally designed “relationships,” such as computer dates, have to be fleshed out tremendously if the effects are expected to last a lifetime. Perhaps that’s not the expectation. They may be just “feel good” opportunities for all involved.

Sillaway’s biggest encouragement to me in school was directed at my writing efforts. In third grade, all my “original” stories closely resembled Nancy Drew mysteries in content — and length. Her comment on one writing assignment contained the request that “when you write your first book, please send me an autographed copy.” I took this as a compliment, though it may have been a veiled complaint about length — or originality. Nevertheless, I dedicated my economics dissertation to her in 1989, not knowing whether she was still alive.

It turns out she was, and when I spoke to her at age 94 — after 41 years — in January 2004, I was unsure whether she would have any idea who I was. She did. She had repeated one of my stories numerous times over the years, and told me she had been thinking of me “just that morning.” We’ll keep in touch hereafter.
Sillaway represents the best kind of mentor that a kid can have. There’s lots of enthusiasm, no planning. It’s what we in economics call a “spontaneous order process.”

While the current movement to promote mentorlike relationships between caring adults and kids who could use the attention is laudable, I wonder how many will be turned off by the very institutional nature of it all. Will we now need degrees or certificates in mentoring?
I hope not. Institutionally engineered friendships are at best two-dimensional substitutes for the real thing.

Dr. Karen Palasek is assistant editor of Carolina Journal.