
As my long term readers know I was a group mentor this past school year and now I’ve moved on to one on one mentoring. I worked with six fabulous sixth grade girls. They are all brilliant, and they each had their own personalities. Finding the right way to reach them was a challenge.

Something that my mentee, Stacy (not her real name) and I shared in common was our love of the Harry Potter series. Stacy would actually read anything written by J. K. Rowling’s so for me this was my way to interact with her. Even if I weren’t a Harry Potter fan, I would have become one since I knew this was something she was interested in.
She actually quizzed me to see whether I really had read the series based on my answers I guess I passed the quiz. The simple fact that I shared a common interest really opened up the doors of our communication. She finally had someone to talk to about the series, and other things in her life. Her friends and some of her family members thought she was a “freak” or “weird” to be reading such nonsense.

I told her throughout life you will find people that will, unfortunately, form an inaccurate opinion about