How To Fix Education For Under-Resourced and Low-Income Families

Fixing Education — Part 1 — Introduction and Background

“Every year, over 1.2 million students drop out of high school in the United States alone. That’s a student every 26 seconds — or 7,000 a day.” — DoSomething.org

Hi, I’m the founder of Mentorem and

I have developed a program that’s going to take a big bite out of the 1.2 million drop outs every year.

But before I get to what Mentorem is, let me begin with a story.

When I used to live in Florida, I would often travel across the country to visit my family in California. One of those visits dramatically changed the direction of my life.

It was around march of 2014 and I was staying with my brother and his family. During this time, the kids were always happy and seemed to be doing well in school, at least according to them.

One day, after school, they came home and were very quiet. After some prodding, I found out it was report card day. So I asked them to show me their report cards but they were scared to show it to me.

And once they did, oh boy. It was not good. There were a lot of zeroes and a lot of really bad grades for all their subjects. What really bothered me, were the math grades. I couldn’t believe that my niece and nephew were failing math.

Research has shown that if middle school students fail in math, they rarely recover.

Based on this research and because they were about to enter middle school, I wanted to make sure my niece and nephew did not fail their math classes. I wanted to help them overcome their fears and insecurities around learning. So I made a deal with them and I became their coach and mentor.

For the next 6 months, while going through next years math curriculum, we worked on mastering their basic math skills and I reprogrammed their study habits and learning skills. At the end of the summer, I gave them both math tests and they demolished their tests with ease. My nephew got all 100’s except for one 98 score. And my niece aced her basic math skills with ease.

Fast forward 2 months to November, I found out that they ended up getting all A’s & B’s, without any help from me whatsoever. So not only did they end up doing well in their math class, but they did really well for all of their other classes too.

What surprised me even more was when I came back to visit for Christmas break. They asked if they can attend my winter school program because they thought the summer school program was a lot of fun.

Mentorem

Many people have asked me. “How and why did I create Mentorem?”

One was to scratch my own itch, helping my family.

The other, is that personally, I am tired of seeing kids living in environments that pretty much assure they will not succeed. I’ve lived in that environment.

It’s really disheartening to get to know these kids and to see how badly they want to succeed in school. But yet, they are not afforded the right learning environments to do well in school. It isn’t fair. And that’s why I decided to develop the Mentorem program.

What I didn’t realize, when I started to develop this program, is that I have actually been testing and working on this program for years and years. It’s not something out of the blue. I have been working and thinking about how to solve learning problems ever since I’ve been tutoring classmates and playing sports. Whether it was for school or sports, it always ended up being the same.

It’s all about learning.

Childhood

My childhood journey is a little different from most kids. I was born into poverty myself, in Vietnam. After moving to the U.S., I ended up living in three different economic classes of upper, middle, and low income.

It was the experience of living in these distinct economic classes that showed me how different environments played out in my own life. And even more dramatically in others.

But it’s not only the physical environments that are different. It’s also the social and emotional environments as well.

I began to understand something vital as I was watching my neighbors and classmates moving through school, doing poorly, lacking focus, or sailing through with ease. A pattern started to emerge.

It wasn’t money that created a future. It wasn’t lack of money that determined where you would end up. It was something much deeper and more intangible.

It was discipline. It was practice. It was focus. And it was play. It was environment.

It’s these intangibles that are so important in any child’s life. It’s the make up of any gifted learners.

Sports

I played a lot of sports when I was younger. I’ve also been very lucky to be a part of many championship teams. But getting there, meant losing a lot and learning my way to winning. It was in those losses, that I learned what it was like to compete and win like a champion.

It was the focused practice and a disciplined routine. It was learning that losing is part of winning. It was building confidence by mastering basic skills.

And those same principles apply to learning. If a kid can learn to be great in a sport or a game, that child can do the same with any basic subject.

A child who doesn’t thrive in sports or in the classroom has to relearn how to learn.

A framework is born

I’ve tested this multiple times in my life. From working in an after school program for 3 years to managing a programming department where I taught and trained many college students how to code. There were many sleepless nights spent trying to solve their learning problems.

So slowly, I started connecting all the dots. I had to get their interest. I had to figure out how to make it fun. Make it like a sport. Make it a game. And gamify it.

And so I did. And it worked to perfection.

Coaches & Mentors

I’ve lived in that low-income and high crime neighborhood. I know exactly what it’s like to live in that environment. From the thought processes that a kid goes through to the limited opportunities that are given to them. Somehow, I came out of it. But I could not have done it all by myself.

It was all the coaches and mentors, that I was lucky to have throughout my life, that have made a HUGE difference.

Providing me with advice. Whether I wanted to hear it or not. Providing me with the structure and discipline that I needed. Whether I wanted it or not. They have been a huge part of my life.

And that’s the biggest reason I have developed Mentorem.

Mentorem employs and trains coaches to mentor and coach kids in their local community centers.

It reprograms the way they spend their time and energy focusing on learning. It changes the way they think, the way they approach a problem, and the way they view themselves. Mentorem helps build championship quality learners.

My goal is to bring this way of solving learning difficulties to everyone. I want to help each child reach his or her potential — and surpass it.

It’s about building their confidence. It’s about learning to have a gritty mindset in the face of adversity. It’s about providing the best learning environment for them. It’s about creating good, lasting habits.

And most importantly, it’s about them knowing there’s someone in their life that cares for them while holding them accountable for their actions.

In this blog series, I will share the following topics and how it relates to the Mentorem after school and summer program:

• What I learned from tutoring a gang leader and living in 4 different economic environments
• What I learned as I progressed from losing to winning championships in sports and how similar it is to the progression of my professional career
• What I learned about kids and parents from working at an after school program in low-income neighborhoods for 3 years and selling education books door-to-door for a summer

In the next post, I will share what I learned from kids and parents and more details about the Mentorem program and what we are looking for in community centers to assure that we are successful in changing kids lives. Click here to view the next post.