Stories of Mentoring
Dear Mariangela,
Since we have come to the end of the school year and Mentoring, I think it is important to review what this experience has meant.
Everything started last year and, if I am not mistaken, it did not start at the beginning of the year but during it.
They offered me to enroll my daughter Silvia into Mentoring since there was a free spot. I had never heard about this initiative and sincerely, as the teacher presented it, it seemed to me only aimed at children at risk.
Since kindergarten Silvia has been described as an unconfident child always looking for the consent of adults and peers. Furthermore, she has always showed a particular difficulty in accepting a noisy environment, in fact screams and yells have always scared her; she has always feared of being yelled at as her peers at school. When she entered the elementary school she still had this fear and often her games were based on a "dramatization of what happened in the classroom". At kindergarten as well as elementary school, she kept imitating her teachers who yelled at children in the classroom.This lasted for several years.
During the second grade I noticed Silvia had difficulties in learning math.Until that moment Silvia had not showed great skills but not even great difficulties. She memorized quickly what she had to write in Italian but she seemed to forget math too quickly.
After specific learning tests it was found out that Silva has a slight dyslexia and a more evident dyscalculia.
This difficulty was mistaken for "hesitation" and "low self-esteem". So Silvia has arrived at fourth grade among difficulties and incomprehension.
She also arrived at Mentoring. We saw together her report card assessment at the end of the first term. It was negative and you, as the activity coordinator, did not recognize in those assessments the child you had at Mentoring.
We thought we would have worked together on that issue, you at Mentoringand myself at home so that to show Silvia first and then her teachers that Silvia was not that kind of child.
When during this first term we withdrew the report card we pleasingly found a remarkable change in Silvia's school performance and a positive evaluation that finally her teachers had of her.
I told Silvia "we need to show Erminia your report card", her mentor, and she replied, "I've got to thank her because she has helped me a lot...She kept saying to not be afraid, and also that I amstrong and I can make it".
I was very pleased of hearing these words. Now Silvia is more confident, she has understood that it depends on her getting good results and if anyone thinks differently from her, she will show them they are wrong.
The aim of this letter is to show that Mentoring can be useful to other children and also to thank those who haveworked with you on the Mentoring Project of the School Pascoli in Solbiate Olona.
A warm thank you to Erminia, the mentor of my daughter Silvia.
Thank you,
Francesca Venturi
Solbiate Olona, 14thMay 2011
