Six Months Later

Last week marked six months since Jamal and I first met. In celebration, our case manager from Big Brother Big Sister bombarded me with voicemail and email messages requesting that I give her my thoughts and complete a survey on the arrangement up to this point.
The case manager’s harassment turned out to be a good thing since it reminded me that we hadn’t hung out for some weeks. When given a choice between another museum and ice skating, Jamal decided on the ice rink. He found it awkward at first and asked me for a pointer every few laps as we coasted around the rink. Usually, he would shoot off half way through my explanation, eager to put it into practice. By the end of our two hour session he had become pretty difficult to catch when we had a one lap race. That was partly due to his tendency to intentionally weave around small children so that I would have to slow down or risk body checking one of them into the glass. We both enjoyed the afternoon, and he actually said that it was more fun than roller skating, which he does somewhat frequently.
As I look back on the past six months, my objectives for the mentorship, and Jamal’s development, I am pleased. I signed up for the program with the hope that I would get the chance to guide a young, black, pre-adolescent down a path that leads to a brighter future. And for the most part, I believe that Jamal is moving in that direction.
Socially, his grandmother’s rigid limitations have prevented him from falling into peer groups likely to encourage violent or destructive behaviors. So for the time being, I believe that he is more than capable of dealing with the negative peer pressure that is typical of his age group.
Academically, he seems to be trying harder, but I won’t have an objective measure of improvement until his 3rd quarter grades are released. He does seem responsive to my encouragement. He keeps me updated on what assignments he’s working on and as we were driving back from the ice rink, he brought up the topic of our goal of a 90% average for the coming quarter without prompting. It’s quite possible that it had more to do with him specifying which accessories I should include with the Gamecube console that I set as his incentive, than the grades themselves. But even if that is the case, he knows the goal and has made it clear that he intends to achieve it.
Most importantly, our relationship has become a genuine friendship. My fiancée claims that I wish I could be 11 for the rest of my life, which would make a 12 year old friend ideal. But the ability to use our friendship to influence Jamal’s perspective and decisions is perhaps its greatest benefit.