Mentorship is a relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person. The mentor may be older or younger than the person being mentored, but she or she must have a certain area of expertise.
Every man or woman born on this stage of life has practiced the art of mentorship knowingly or unknowingly. A child teaching his or her younger siblings to wait patiently on the busy road only to cross when the road is clear is practicing the art of mentorship. A parent teaching his or her children the norms and tradition of his family or tribe is practicing the art of mentorship. A teacher teaching a child a subject in order to become a better person in life is practicing mentorship.
I n mentorship there is a transfer a knowledge and skill, in mentorship one's reasoning is shifted from the path of ignorance to the path of enlightenment. In mentorship unrefined qualities are removed and refined qualities blossom.
The southern part of Nigeria especially the Igbo race knows the art of mentorship. Here a prominent business man goes home to his village and looks for an able bodied teenager or adolescent that needs help, takes him home to the city to serve him as an apprentice for 7years or more. In the course of training, the Igbo man teaches the young man certain skills that are needed for the success of the trade in which he partakes. One of the reason why the Igbo man does this is because knows how to catch fish and not to eat fish. After the course of training, the Igbo man gives the enough capital to set up a similar trade and then frees him.
This is the same with the marriage setting in the olden days. Here a young girl or teenager that is betrothed to an elder man, is sent to the house of a woman that is skilled with home making skills for some time. The woman mentors the young girl some home making skills like cooking, sewing e.t.c. The older gives her back to her parents who gives her to her husband at the expiration of her training.
Recently the art of mentorship is gradually fading. its decline is now an ill wind that blows nobody good. Its effects is being felt in our various homes, schools and the society at large. I will share in this post the five errors of mentorship in which people that carry it do. I believe you would be enlightened as you read on. The error of mentorship are:
ERROR1:There are many parents but few are role models: Parents play a great in a child's character formation .A child unless set aside by God cannot grow good characteristic qualities in a place where the parents are constantly quarrelling or in a place where the father comes home in a drunken state and beats up every one at home. Unsettled family homes normally produces children with unsettled behavior. Nowadays you hardly see a parent discipline his or her child when he goes home. Such a parent is abusing his or her mentorship role in the family. Parents should live noble lives and discipline their children if need be . Let your children see you as that role model they desire to be .
ERROR 2: Teachers abound but few greatly impacts the life of the child: I remember when iwas in secondary school, there was a teacher that taught us Christian religious knowledge. The teacher was quiet and pious when she was at school, but was loose with men at home although she taught a moral instructional subject . Let our modern day teachers be role models to their students . Let the students see them as a great light of impact that shines on their path and I assure you a child you impact positively never forgets.
To be continued
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