{"id":2247,"date":"2015-11-12T12:25:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-12T17:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/?p=2247"},"modified":"2015-11-12T12:25:55","modified_gmt":"2015-11-12T17:25:55","slug":"as-mentors-we-wear-a-plethora-of-hats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/as-mentors-we-wear-a-plethora-of-hats\/","title":{"rendered":"‘AS MENTORS, WE WEAR A PLETHORA OF HATS’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"colby\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cNah,\u201d I\u2014 says, \u201cwriting is supposed to be easy for y\u2019all.\u201d<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t believe me, so I shake my head again, \u201cNinety percent of the time I don\u2019t want to, don\u2019t feel like it, or try to make excuses. Because mostly, writing is hard. Its work.\u201d There\u2019s a trace of disbelief on I\u2014\u2019s face like \u201cdid she really just own up to that?\u201d and eventually our conversation patters off and he goes back to writing.<\/p>\n

As mentors, we wear a plethora of hats. Often more than one, or we do a quick change from student to student, because as easy as it would be to say that we are teachers, friends, writers, confidants, sympathizers, or \u201cthat person you need to get permission to use bathroom from,\u201d we\u2019re really a great big smorgasbord of all of them.<\/p>\n

And, surprise, it isn\u2019t always about the writing. Most of my sessions bounce between some sort of dance class\/talent show\/spoken word\/concert\/chill sesh. I\u2019ve found out more about relationships, families, and the inner workings of Broad Ripple than I could have ever imagined. We\u2019ve dissected music, where to eat, and how we feel about school uniforms. When they learned I was new to Indiana a group of girls carefully articulated a map of the best movie theaters and debated, so I wouldn\u2019t have to, whether Church\u2019s was really the best place for some chicken (spoiler alert: it isn\u2019t). I\u2019ve read raps, love songs, poems, comics, sci-fi, dramas, comedies, and more than one musical. Their writing has reached from desert islands to abandoned houses and all the abstract reaches of body and mind. Thus, while a large part of every day is spent writing, we aren\u2019t always talking about it.<\/p>\n

Which is why my conversation with I\u2014 was so meaningful. Over the short amount of time we\u2019ve worked together I\u2014 is one of the kids who is more reticent. Less ready to share or to admit weakness or defeat, alongside his magnanimous personality. Normal, you\u2019d think, for the average fifteen year old, but so many of these students are dancers, singings, actors, and musicians, that their comfort and openness is astonishing.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve learned that they almost always want to share and for you to read their work. They might like some help with a prompt, but lots of times, they\u2019ve got it covered. One of my goals for the semester has been to be a meaningful presence and to contribute something to their understanding and ability to write without inserting myself or altering a narrative. After all, I can\u2019t play an instrument or tap dance, no one wants to hear me sing, and improv makes me weak in the knees, but I do know a whole bunch about writing. The truth is, as much as I\u2019d like to believe that I\u2019m teaching them, my moment with I\u2014 is one that I point to and say \u201cI taught him<\/em> something he didn\u2019t know\u201d because mostly, in the best of ways, they\u2019ve been teaching me.<\/p>\n

Colby Ornell is a graduate student in the MFA Creative Writing program.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cNah,\u201d I\u2014 says, \u201cwriting is supposed to be easy for y\u2019all.\u201d He doesn\u2019t believe me, so I shake my head again, \u201cNinety percent of the time I don\u2019t want to, don\u2019t feel like it, or try to make excuses. Because mostly, writing is hard. Its work.\u201d There\u2019s a trace of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":624,"featured_media":2248,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[37038],"tags":[],"coauthors":[265091],"class_list":["post-2247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bu-tutor-reflections","column","twocol","has-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/624"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2247"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2250,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2247\/revisions\/2250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2247"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}