New shoes? Check. Fresh backpack? Check. Pens, pencils, notebooks and enough folders to hopefully make it through the first semester? Check.
Back-to-school season comes with a familiar checklist. Families stock up on supplies, communities host backpack giveaways, and students walk through school doors with fresh haircuts and carefully planned first-day outfits.
But there may be something missing from that checklist, and you probably will not find it at your local store or backpack giveaway.
A mentor.
Someone who knows a child’s name and cares about what happens after the first day. Someone who offers guidance when things get difficult, celebrates progress, provides accountability and recognizes potential in a young person before he knows how to recognize it in himself.
For young Black boys, that relationship can be particularly valuable.
Federal education data have consistently shown racial disparities in school discipline. A U.S. Government Accountability Office analysis found Black students represented about 15.5 percent of public school students but approximately 39 percent of students suspended from school during the 2013-14 school year.
Those numbers raise an important question: What happens when we get curious about a child’s behavior before allowing that behavior to define him?
A student who talks too much can quickly become “disruptive.” A child who struggles to sit still becomes “difficult.” A teenager who stops completing assignments becomes someone who “doesn’t care.”
Sometimes behavior needs correction. But behavior does not always tell us why something is happening.
That is where mentorship can offer another set of eyes.
Dr. Jamaal Eubanks, founder of The Determination to Succeed mentoring program, says mentorship requires more than occasionally checking in.
“Mentorship is much more than meaningless check ins that just ask how someone is doing,” Eubanks said. “It’s about building genuine relationships, providing guidance, giving advice, holding them accountable with love and care! Mentorship takes patience and sacrifice. Mentorship can heal both mentor and mentee and change lives.”
Research supports the importance of those relationships. According to Youth.gov, mentoring has been associated with improved attitudes toward school, relationships, self-confidence and behavior. Academic outcomes vary among programs, but research also suggests the quality and longevity of mentoring relationships matter.
In other words, mentorship is not just checking in. It is sticking around.
Eubanks puts that philosophy into practice through Determination to Succeed, which focuses on perseverance, accountability, self-reflection and helping young people develop their own ideas of success.
His newer educational framework, The Eubanks Learner Language, or ELL, adds another piece by helping students understand and communicate how they learn. ELL identifies four learner categories: Reader, Talker, Doer and Visualizer. The larger goal is not simply labeling students. It is giving them language to advocate for themselves.
Imagine the difference between a child saying, “I don’t get it,” and being able to say, “Can you show me an example?” or “Can I talk through this with someone?”
A mentor can help create room for both accountability and curiosity. A trusted adult can say, What you did wasn’t OK, without turning one moment into a judgment about who a child is. Then comes another question: What happened, and what can we do differently next time?
A mentor cannot eliminate every challenge a Black boy will encounter. Mentorship does not replace parents, teachers, adequate school resources, fair discipline or a student’s own accountability.
It adds another layer of support.
So this back-to-school season, the backpack may be full. The pencils may be sharpened. The new shoes may be ready.
But some of the most valuable things a child can carry into a new school year cannot be purchased.
Guidance. Accountability. Encouragement. Someone who sees him.
Maybe it is time to add mentorship to the back-to-school checklist.
