March 2025 T/MI eNews

Where are you and your leaders finding information to support youth and volunteers in organized tutor, mentor and learning programs? Or to support your everyday lives?

Are your normal sources of information still working? Do you have other places to turn to for ideas and information?

The Tutor/Mentor library is one alternative source. Take a look.

It's full of links, so save it and refer to it throughout the month. Use the ideas and resources to help you build and sustain mentor-rich, school and non-school, tutor, mentor and learning programs that reach K-12 youth in all areas of persistent poverty. These resources can be used by anyone, in Chicago, or around the world.

Please share this so others in your city can find and use these resources!

In my Tutor/Mentor blog I have posted more than 75 articles pointing to a group of Connected Learning (#CLMOOC) educators who I met in on-line learning groups in early 2013 and have continued to interact with since then.

Recently they encouraged me to answer some questions about "Why I Blog." My first article focused "Why I started blogging in 2005". Those reasons are why I still write one or two articles a week and why I encourage others to do the same. We need alternative sources of information and friends who can help us understand complex problems and potential solutions.

You can read my first #Blogging4Life post at this link.

My blog articles point to information on the www.tutormentorexchange.net website. That's where the library I started building in the 1970s is now hosted.

I've used concept maps since the mid 2000s to visualize strategies and to show information in the Tutor/Mentor Library. The top concept map shows the full library, which has four main sections. You can view it here.

The lower concept map shows how I embed links in some of my blog articles, as updates when I find newer information. Some of these links go into the main library but many do not. Thus, these articles are sort of a 'mini library'. You can open the link here.

In this article I show other ways to visualize the information in my libraries.

These two concept maps show a different way to visualize information and what I've done using cMapTools. The top concept map (click here) is from a Mapping History of Western Philosophers project. It was built using Kumu.io which is an interactive relationship mapping tool.

The lower concept map is from a project that maps the teams involved in the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup. The interactive map has many sort features and the ability to zoom in and learn about specific teams and individual players.

I show these and other ideas about using visualization tools in this concept map.

Know your network. Nudge your network. Map your network.

In early March I participated in two webinars about networks. The graphic shown above is from a presentation by June Holley, titled "Exploring Multiscalar Networks".

June has been helping people and networks connect for more than 40 years. I've followed her since the mid 2000s. The three images above show uses of tools like Kumu as well as geographic maps to show "who" is in your network, "how" they are interacting, and "where" they are located.

The second webinar was titled "State of STEM ecosystems" and showed how community-based STEM networks in many cities are connected to each other in a much broader national network.

Links to both presentations can be found in this article, where I've added my own history of trying to connect leaders, volunteers and supporters of Chicago tutor, mentor and learning programs in an on-going learning and problem-solving community.

I mentioned the Connected Learning (#CLMOOC) group earlier. It's another example of an idea sharing network that I think is a way to connect people who share a common interest.

Furthermore, in this section of the Tutor/Mentor library I aggregate links to blogs about learning, networking and fund raising. Some of these blogs are people I've been following since the 2000s.

One section shows blogs from tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and other cities. I wish more of the programs I host on my lists were actively blogging. Many of the blogs on my list have not been updated for several years, but they do provide ideas for you if you're thinking about starting a blog.

Building long-term support for programs in many locations is the challenge.

I saw a post on Facebook last week from one of the students who was part of the tutor/mentor program I led in Chicago in the 1990s. Her message was "I'll receive my Masters in social work in 30 days!"

The top graphic is one I created over 20 years ago to show the goal of building and sustaining volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs that reach kids as early as elementary school and help them through high school and into adult lives. I'm still connected to most of those in that photo and many have college and advanced degrees! That was the goal.

The bottom part of the graphic shows how the typical foundation grant only provides a small percent of operating money a typical youth serving program needs each year. That means each organization has to constantly reach in many directions to find all the "fuel" it needs to provide a full year of services. In addition, most grants are for only one to three years. That's like saying to a child, "I'll raise you for the first three years. You find someone else to take you the next three years." And the three years after that!

That's why I wrote this article, titled "Want to make a difference? Re-Think Philanthropy". If you can find people in your community who care about these issues, and draw them together into an on-going learning network, maybe you can begin to innovate new ways to support long-term youth serving programs. Or solve other problems that the world is facing.

Build lists of youth serving programs. Draw attention to them daily.

The articles in this newsletter have focused on networked learning. The first step is "knowing your network".

When we published the first Chicago Tutor/Mentor Directory in 1994 we did not just list the volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs who had responded to our first survey. We also included a broad list of others who were involved in one way, or another, with the work these programs were doing. When we hosted the first Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in May 1994, we invited everyone from our list to attend.

I still host an extensive lists of Chicago and national youth serving programs and use my blog, newsletters and social media to invite them to connect and share ideas. You can find my lists on the http://www.tutormentorexchange.net website. That's where you can also find my library, with more than 2000 other resources, representing people from throughout the country who need to be connected in an on-going learning network. As I send this newsletter monthly my goal is that it influences people in other cities to duplicate my entire strategy, including building their own libraries and then connecting to me and each other in on-line networking.

Is someone already doing this in your community? Please send their link to me and I'll add them to my library.

Thank you for reading.

Please share this newsletter with people you know who work in non-school youth serving programs, or in sectors that should be strategically supporting such programs, such as business, philanthropy, education and public policy. If they are not receiving these newsletters then we have no way of engaging them. Also encourage friends, family, co-workers to sign up to receive this newsletter.

I encourage others to duplicate what I'm doing. Write a blog and share your own vision, strategy and challenges. Share your link and I'll add it to this list in the Tutor/Mentor library.

View current and past newsletters at this link.

To subscribe, just Click here.

(If you subscribe, don't forget to respond to the confirmation email).