Helen Leshinsky
The whole Peer Mentorship team
We interviewed Schultz and Collado for receiving their awards on the peer mentorship program, which connects sophomores and juniors with students in seventh and eighth grade to build relationships and offer support to the latter, while building high school student’ leadership and communication skills. We sat down with Mr. Schultz and Ms. Collado to talk to them about their win.
What encouraged you guys to start peer mentoring in this school?
Brian Shultz: “There’s certain things in advisory that as an advisor you can’t get done with the students like personal conversations.”
Collado: “Seeing there was a lot of middle schoolers were a lot being invisible and like forgotten and how it would be really great to link with high schoolers who maybe feel like like in middle school and when they got to high school are maybe feeling seen”
In your experience what encourages someone to seek out a mentor or volunteer to mentor others?
Schultz: “Most kids don’t feel the need or motivation to seek out mentoring from other students but if you give them the opportunity say hey this is possible then some kids will do”
Collado: “Having someone you can connect to and share what you’re going through is what many times pushes someone to get a mentor.”
How did it feel to get an award for your hard work and dedication to give other students a chance to rely on each other?
Schultz: “My motivation now is to make it bigger and better, and for me to just fall back, make the program more student economist”
Collado: “It’s nice your putting all this effort and getting recognized for it, and I like what the program strands for.”