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Originally Posted by GreyingJay
Good on you. I really like this. It kind of sounds obvious but it is something I wish I had thought to do at our last regional, which went pretty much exactly like you described yours. I will for sure try to follow your lead next time.
It can help if you have more mentors. I was the newbie mentor on the software team which already had ample students and mentors. I was able to work almost one-on-one with one of the younger students who was enthusiastic but felt he couldn't contribute because he didn't know things. I often would say "Well, I don't know the answer to that either, let's find out!" and led by example an attitude of learning to solve problems. The attitude I was trying to set was "I don't need to know all the answers, I just need to know how to find them". I also tried to steer him toward successes and accomplishments within his capability so he wouldn't feel like he wasn't contributing. I received a lot of positive comments from the other mentors and even other students.
Maybe the bottom line is this. Some mentors think they are here to build a robot. I think I am here to build the students. That's what will keep them coming back.
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I guess it all comes back to us needing mentors.