An Evening of Ice Skating

Last night one of my mentees celebrated his 16th birthday.  I picked up four of his friends who are also in LAMP, and we had a great evening of fun together.  We went out to eat at my mentee's favorite restaurant, and we went ice skating at the North Park ice skating rink.  I started taking this group ice skating when we first began hanging out together five years ago, and they always want me to take them there.  It's kind of one of those funny things where my mentees have become infatuated with ice skating.  They're actually getting pretty good at it (not that I'm an expert on judging ice skating talent).

I'm not very good at ice skating, so when I take them I generally take a few awkward laps around the rink to get everyone going and then I kind of hang out on the side rail or inside in the heated space to watch them.  I love doing that now, because I have great one on one discussions with my mentees at the skating rink.  Usually one at a time they come over to me to rest and watch their friends, so we chat about all kinds of stuff.  We talk about whatever is on their minds... girls, school, college, jobs, driving, music, etc.  Those moments capture the magic of mentoring for me.  Kids really open up about their lives when they are in a relationship with someone they trust, and when the conversations are not programmed or staged in a sterile counseling office or school classroom.

Another important thing to remember is that although I do connect with my mentees when I take them out of their environment in Homewood, I also make sure to spend just as much, if not more, intentional time connecting with them in Homewood... in their schools, in their homes, in the streets, at places like the YMCA, in my home, and so on.  Some people may criticize LAMP because our mentors take mentees out of their environment to have fun, but LAMP mentors also enter into their mentees' environments to spend time with them on their turf.  I think that philosophy is key to the LAMP strategy for reaching kids in Homewood.  I have seen many well-intended programs fail to reach at-risk youth because the leaders or volunteers are unwilling or afraid to enter into the context of the kids they are attempting to impact.  I think those types of programs can confuse kids.  We need to help our mentees figure out life in their context, and we should be careful not to train kids to think that everything good and interesting happens outside of their neighborhood.  So my mentees and I go ice skating in the suburbs, and we play paper football at lunch time in their schools.  We go to the libray in Oakland, and we go to the libray in Homewood.  We go to Pitt football games at Heinz Field, and we toss the football around while dodging cars in the streets of Homewood.  Contextualization is an important part of reaching modern young people.