Sunday, February 26, 2017

Oscars Tonight. Take a Look at Tutor/Mentor Videos From Past.

Tonight the world will tune in to a celebration of movie making, and I'm sure I'll be watching, too.  As you view this, think of where each of these actors and movie makers got their starts. Also listen to the social, environmental and political activism built into films, and into acceptance speeches of winners.

If you've time today, I hope you'll look at videos interns have made in past years, helping me tell the Tutor/Mentor Connection, T/MC strategy story.  Then look at a few videos I made. Think you can do better? I'm sure you can. In fact, I hope you'll try.

War on Poverty video - by Kyungryul Kim from South Korea.



This video was created,  drawing from this PDF presentation from the Tutor/Mentor Connection library (note: since 2011 T/MC has been operated by Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. Same goals and strategy. Different tax structure. Same lack of funding.).



The PDF presentation began as this blog article, written in 2008.

From 2005 through 2016 I've hosted interns from various colleges at the Tutor/Mentor Connection and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC sites. I've encouraged them to read articles on my blogs, then created their own interpretations. You can see five pages of presentations done by past interns at this link.

I tried my hand at creating videos in 2010 and 2011. I posted a few of these on Vialogues recently so I could annotate them and show changes in my organizational structure and contact information. Below is one.



Earlier this week, Janice Cho, Design Director at DevMynd Software spoke at Chicago Hack Night, about human centered design.


Among the list of tips she offered was one talking about how 'what it looks like' matters, and creates a positive or negative first impression.  In a 1998 Chapin Hall case study of the Tutor/Mentor Connection, the writers commented on the "low budget" production quality of our materials and said that many potential supporters might not look, due to the lack of "professionalism" in the printed materials and due to the lack of a high profile spokesperson.

Without money to hire talent, or volunteers to provide talent, this has continued to be a handicap, which persists through 2017.

All of my blog articles are an invitation for big and small, local or national, leaders to adopt the ideas and strategies as their own.

Thus, as you watch the Oscars, think of ways you might become a producer, writer or actor, communicating the strategies of the Tutor/Mentor Connection, through use of your own talent, time and dollars.


This article appeared in the Chicago Tribune in 1994 showing my goal of creating more frequent attention drawing support to non-school tutoring, mentoring and learning programs in Chicago's high poverty neighborhoods.  That's still needed.

Can you win your own Oscar for doing this work?



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