Classroom Mentors Build Trust to Build Relationships

As a parent of kids in OUSD combined with his passion for teaching, Bobby Ondago knew he wanted to give more to the Oakland community and we are glad he connected with us. Bobby has been mentoring with Oakland Serves for the past two years, specifically assisting weekly in CAR (Central Academic Recovery) math classes at McClymonds. Outside of Oakland Serves, he tutors math professionally by helping students with SAT and ACT prep for college admissions.   

Bobby with math teacher, Ms. Martyn

As part of our series of classroom mentor profiles, we recently talked to him about his perspective on motivating students who are already disengaged from school.  Below is a quick recap on his interview or you can watch his complete interview on our Youtube channel.

Students he works with are often discouraged by the subject, which brings down their confidence.  He tries to break down complex concepts into something simpler for them to understand.  For him, sometimes it’s finding ways to better explain the concepts than the textbook might explain it and using real life examples.  Bobby recognizes that learning isn’t linear and sometimes it takes a while.  But the important part is that students make the effort and try.  “Changing their mindset from ‘this is too hard’ to ‘I understand the material and I can do this’ and growth in confidence is key to student success” according to Bobby.  Support like that provided by Oakland Serves’ in-classroom mentors can help students transition to a mindset focused on success. 

Students often ask when they will ever need to use a particular concept.  To that, he emphasizes the broader importance of education as the foundation of critical thinking skills as it helps teach students how to solve other problems that come at them.

Bobby’s steady support for students also allows for a relationship built on trust. With a chuckle, he recalls one student who was skeptical that Bobby would spend his free time volunteering in the classroom. But after Bobby explained that he was there because he wanted to help—and because he wanted the student to learn—the student respected him even more.

He ended the interview with a few words of wisdom, “Learning is something the whole community is involved in, not just teachers and parents, to teach the younger generation.  As long as I have the capability, I will be involved one way or another to help students in whatever capacity that I can.”