A few months ago I was invited to be part of the 60th Anniversary Celebration of Tutoring Chicago, which started in 1965 as the Montgomery Ward/Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program. I joined as a volunteer tutor in 1973, during my first year of starting a retail advertising career at the Montgomery Ward Corporate Headquarters in Chicago. I joined the volunteer leadership committee in 1974 and became the program's volunteer leader in 1975. I held that role through 1990 when we converted the program to a non profit, called "Cabrini Green Tutoring Program, Inc." I led it until October 1992 then left because of disagreements with the volunteers on the Board of Directors, who I had recruited to their roles.
That led me to form a second program, helping kids who aged out of the first program after 6th grade get continued tutor, mentor and learning support through high school. That also led to me forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 to help our program, and every other tutor/mentor program in Chicago, get more consistent media attention and a more consistent flow of operating dollars.
The original program is now Tutoring Chicago. I was asked to share my thoughts and this video is a portion of them.
For those who are interested here are the questions from Tutoring Chicago and answers that I shared with them prior to doing the video interview.
In many articles on this blog I've shown the vision driving my daily work. Below are portions of an article I wrote in 2017 under the headline of "Go Forth and Multiply."
---- begin 2017 article ---
I put the entire card into a PDF and uploaded it to SlideShare. You can view it below. Use your zoom button to enlarge and see all the signatures and comments. One of the joys of having led these programs is the enthusiasm and positive feed back that I've received. However, that has to lead to more than just "thank you cards". Read more after you view this.
I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 (and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011) to help mentor-rich non-school programs grow in every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago and since then have created a huge library and hundreds of articles and strategy presentations that are tools others could use to help with this strategy.
In the four-part strategy that we developed in 1993, step 1 focuses on collecting information, such as the database of Chicago tutor and mentor organizations. However, step 2 and step 3 focus on increasing the number of people who are using this information.
Since I never had many dollars for advertising, and I'm not a celebrity or part of a wealthy family, or politically connected, this strategy has always depended on others carrying the ideas I launch on this blog and my web sites forward to their own friends, family and co-workers.
This graphic illustrates how ideas I share can be shared by people who read them, with others who will read them and then pass them on to even greater numbers of people. I included this in a 2011 article, and in many others.I was thinking about this last week during a Twitter chat with educators from around the world and the I began to think of this graphic as a form of fireworks.
Some of these also explode, creating another burst of stars, representing the message reaching a new network of people. Often there's a third, and a fourth blast, meaning the ideas are reaching more and more people.
Think of my Tweets and articles as a daily blast of exploding ideas.
Below is an example of what I hope happens every day:
That's an amazing resource. Am saving it right away and will spread further. Thanks for sharing Daniel!#nt2t https://t.co/Xc2yw9swTh— Manav Lalotra (@manavlalotra) September 16, 2017
However, so far, too few are passing on the ideas I share and taking actions that result in more and better volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs reaching k-12 youth in every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago and other cities.
In addition, too few are providing talent and dollars to help me continue this work, or to help me pass this entire library and mission on to a younger, more talented generation of leaders. I saw a tweet this morning with a quote saying "the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now" I re-tweeted it with this message.
This is what I say about supporting Tutor/Mentor Connection, which I started in #Chicago in 1993. https://t.co/Gn4yrptIw3— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) September 17, 2017
Had a few leaders helped me "plant the Tutor/Mentor Connection tree" in early 1990s, and helped me continue to nurture it for the past 24 years, I feel Chicago would have a much denser network of mentor-rich programs helping kids in poverty, and many more people taking active roles to share these ideas, get more people involved, and build sustainable and on-going flows of talent and dollars to every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago and other cities. Many might be able to show "thank you" cards from alumni students and volunteers on their own web sites similar to mine.
If this interests you, read the "do-over" articles I posted last spring.
--- end 2017 article ---
The challenges of operating these programs have always been great. In these days of political turmoil and destructive actions from the leadership in Washington, DC, it is even more difficult to attract consistent attention for these programs, which makes it more difficult for them to attract the resources they need to operate, and constantly improve.
I'll be 79 in December and will continue to end my blog articles with a call to help me find one or more universities and/or institutions to take ownership of my archives and my vision, and lead it for the next 20 to 40 years!
Connect with me on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Substack and other platforms. Share your own ideas and strategies. Borrow mine and share them in your own community.
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