Teen Trendsetters by Nina

Teen Trendsetters by Nina - May 2018 Scholarship Essay

I have been a mentor in the Teen Trendsetters program for three years now, including this year. Teen Trendsetters is a program designed to help second graders improve their reading skills. The second graders in the program are at a reading level lower than their peers. In the program, they are assigned to a mentor to have one-on-one help. The mentors are middle and high school students. The mentors and mentees meet every Thursday for an hour for 24 weeks. During the meetings, the mentors try a variety of tactics to help their mentees improve their reading. They use the set of books the mentees receive for the next following weeks depending on their reading levels. For example, the mentor can read while the mentee follows along. Or the mentee can read while the mentor follows along and helps the mentee with the words they don’t know or recognize. They also receive scientific magazines to raise STEM interest. There are questions to go with every article in the magazine, which helps the second graders recall what they've read. It also allows them to practice using the skill to use readings to answer questions. It helps them distinguish what's important and what's not.
The reason I joined the program was that I thought it would benefit me in many ways and it did. I wanted to find out what it was like to be a teacher. I’ve always wanted to be a teacher since I could answer the question, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” But I became worried about whether my shy personality would be able to cope with being a teacher. This program was one of the things I joined to find that out. And it turns out, I can work individually with children, but I don’t think I can handle working with large groups of them. So, I’ve let go of the idea of being a teacher, but I recently thought about being an ESL teacher or a Vietnamese teacher. Currently, I’m still not sure about my career path, but Teen Trendsetters have helped me narrow it.
Although I’m not the best at it, I’ve learned how to work with children, and I love it. It’s especially rewarding to hear that the children’s reading levels have improved by the end of the year. Being a Teen Trendsetters mentor is an experience I’ll always remember and cherish.