Making STEM a better place for women

[Mechvet]

Being a mentor for a FIRST team goes far beyond simply being there as a technical resource.

To expand on what being a mentor means to me, I'm going to start with some background. Everything I know about leadership, mentoring, and instruction came from my time in the United States Marine Corps. Not really known from the outside, but the Corps has a rather intensive Mentorship program where senior Marines take juniors under their wing, and provide both professional and personal mentoring.

The programs seeks, specifically, to

Originally Posted by NACMC DIR 1500.58

provide tools to Marine leaders in order to help them improve their ability to interact on a personal and professional level with their Marines, to help set goals that improve the performance of both the individual Marine and the team...

Now, we're not mentoring Marines here, we're mentoring High School students. A good amount of "toning down" is required, as well as a less... intensive personal involvement. However, I personally believe being a mentor involves knowing when to counsel a student about more than just the good. Sometimes the best thing for a student is to not be instructed, but corrected.

If I'm going to mentor someone, I'm going to be involved in their life as a positive force. Note the terminology here: a positive FORCE. There's acceptable professional behavior, and there's unacceptable. Being confident and assertive enough to pull a student to the side and expand on the negative effects of their actions isn't an easy thing, but the effects are amazing to watch.

To refer to your specific case, pulling the (male) student aside, and having a talk about how his actions are perceived can do him a lot of good, as well as remove the negative situation for the female student. The exact phrasing here is something you've got to CAREFULLY consider. Crushing the student's expression of affection isn't the goal. The goal is to explain that another person isn't perceiving their affection the same way, as well as to put into context the professional manner in which the student SHOULD act.

In summary, sometimes telling someone they're not acting right is what needs to be done. It's not a natural feeling, but it gets easier over time.