In Sunday’s print edition we have two stories that deal with diversity, in particularly the mentoring that some kids get when they find themselves in danger of not graduating from high school.
It’s a critical crossroads. Those who don’t graduate end up in one of three places, according to mentor Robert Boddie:
1. Homeless
2. In jail
3. Dead
To get a taste of what you’ll read Sunday, listen to a snippet from my conversations with Boddie and two Central Kitsap High School students he has mentored.
Well, it looks like more Mr. Boddies are needed, but I suspect they are too few against the onslaught of bad influences young people are exposed to nowadays–the commercialization of sex and violence in music and movies, etc, and the greed for material things.
Emilie Garcia
Port Orchard, WA
There is no need for young people to be completely homeless unless their culture or society fails them, no need for them to make their way by robbing and end up in jail, and no need to die young violently unless it is in the defense of your country.
The people who made this country what it is didn’t have public school systems, they had apprenticeships and they weren’t too proud to work at whatever, to wear chaps or coveralls or other gear. Now they are so spoiled and don’t want to work in factories or fields or orchards, etc. Now you hear kids say they don’t want to work at “just anything”–they reject jobs if they are “too hard” or “too dirty” or don’t pay a certain amount.
Whatever happened to people pulling themselves up by their boot straps, getting a foot in and learning all there was to learn about an enterprise even if they start at the bottom, looking to when they can end up as leaders or managers or owners. That is how it was done back in the day, but now young people expect things just handed to them.
The spoiled teen-age class did not exist; you were a kid until 12, then you were expected to be responsible young adults. Now people want to be spoiled teenagers forever.
Mentoring DOES work with many if not most, kids.
One on one mentoring… ask the ‘Big Sister’ – Big Brother’ program how it is or was working for them?
They give the kids a change to see another, better, lifestyle. Not hand the kids anything but show them a lifestyle – a way of living and education they wouldn’t know otherwise.
The above comments are in addition to other comments I’ve made on the same subject.
Yes, mentoring CAN work and change a kid’s life totally.
In my opinion…. Sharon O’Hara