Study Guide - Tutor/Mentor on Substack.com

When I became the volunteer leader of the Montgomery Ward/Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program in 1975 I was holding a full-time retail advertising job with the company. The program started that year with 100 pairs of 2nd-6th grade kids and workplace volunteers.

There was no way I could personally train every volunteer, so I tried to create a "learning" organization by providing information they could use via our monthly newsletters and weekly handouts.

I continued that practice through email newsletters, blogs, a website and social media through 2011 when I stopped leading a single program. I've continued that practice through the Tutor/Mentor Connection (1993-present) and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (2011-present) in an effort to build more consistent support to help volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs reach K-12 kids in every high poverty area of the Chicago region and beyond.

I've posted articles on this blog since 2005 and on the MappingforJustice blog since 2011 (it was started by Mike Trakan in 2008). I've posted on the Intern blog since it was started by an intern from Hong Kong in 2006.

They are represent a curriculum of ideas that could be embedded in any leadership training program.

Since last fall I've posted a series of articles on Substack.com that aim to highlight featured ideas. Below you can see images for these posts.

You can find links to each of these at https://substack.com/@danielbassill319958

Open this 1984-85 Montgomery Ward/Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program archive and you'll find copies of several newsletters like the one I shared at the top of this article. 

While the maps and much of the research points to Chicago where there are thousands of kids living in highly segregated high-poverty areas, the ideas and strategies can be applied in any city in the world.  I invite you to view them, and created your own versions, putting your own maps and ideas into them.

Then connect with me on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms and help build awareness and involvement with these ideas, and with youth-serving programs in more places. Find links on this page.

Thanks for reading.  I depend on a few long-time supporters for small donations that help me continue this work.  Visit this page if you'd like to help.