Mentor reflections

Susie Dobkins has spent three years in the Dream Project as a mentor at Kent-Meridian, YouthForce and Global High Schools, been a high school lead at YouthForce, Dream Project recruitment manager and a college and career readiness assistant (CCRA) at Decatur High School. She grew up in Rolla, Missouri, and is planning to graduate in 2015 with a major in aquatic and fishery sciences.

Dream Project is nuts. A group of 20-somethings enrolled in college full-time spending hours a week trying to break years of institutional and structural oppression and make sure low-income and first-generation high school students get to college and break the cycle of poverty? Just think about that for a second. WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE? There are many times I’ve thought we are actually nuts for thinking it’s possible, yet every day—every day we get up at the crack of dawn to mentor, every day we break out of our comfort zone, every day we fail gloriously and our peers encourage us to get back up again—we prove ourselves and everyone else wrong.

But it’s not all sunshine and butterflies. Let’s be real.

There were days when every event went exactly as planned—my mentees were perfectly on track to graduate and attend college, I was making friends left and right, feeling like anything was possible. And there were days that were the opposite. Times when we questioned our mentoring strategies and styles, and racked our brains about how effective we were as a program. Times when just supporting a student with the college application process wasn’t enough to help them with what they were going through. Times when I felt that we were just the Band-Aid fix, and that something bigger needed to happen in education policy to truly make a difference. There are times still when I need to check myself and ask “Are you ACTUALLY a social justice ally? Cuz what you said just now was not okay.” For these times, I will be forever grateful.

Nothing beats the unsettling feeling of having your values, beliefs and behavior questioned. And that’s what Dream Project does. Every leadership meeting, lecture, break-out, and mentoring session pushed and continues to push me far, far outside of my comfort zone and made me realize how absolutely privileged and lucky I am to be a white female at the University of Washington. Nothing beats arriving at UW thinking the reason I was admitted was because I worked harder than the other people who applied. HA! I know now that my accomplishments have all to do with my race, where I grew up and with the power I inherently have. Something that is obvious for many, but took a long time for me to realize.

As for my future, I blame Dream Project for igniting my passion for education. Being in schools where students are blatantly failed every day doesn’t just make me sad, it makes me furious. Throughout college I’ve channeled most of my energy into working with this program, to working in schools and supporting students towards their dreams, and I will continue to do that next year as a Teach for America corps member in Appalachia, Kentucky. I believe that education is one of the most impactful ways to give students the power to choose their futures, and I want to be the catalyst for that choice.

All in all, through the countless successes and failures, I wouldn’t take back a second of my time in Dream Project. The opportunities you have access to, the opportunities you help others have access to, the hundreds of outstanding human beings you meet, the skills and perspectives you gain. All of it. Pure craziness. And worth every second.