What You Can Do to End Poverty - 2005 Letter

I've been digitizing more of my archives for the past few months, and again today. I've been sharing some files, like these yearbooks, on social media. The result was 67,200 views of this blog in March 2024.

I did another batch today, which requires looking at old files and seeing if I should put them in my Google drive folder.  I found a letter I wrote in October, 2005, as a "Letter to the Editor" which I hoped the Chicago Tribune would publish.  I was going to post it here, but decided to look first, to see if I had posted it in 2005.

Yes. I did, on November 3, 2005.  So I'm going to share what I wrote then: 

---- start Nov. 2005 article ----

On Tuesday, Nov. 1, I attended a meeting at the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago, where more than 200 people were given information that showed the "State of Latino Chicago". This highlighted the huge contribution Latinos are making to the Chicago area economy, and the need for more programs to help Latino youth move through school and into careers. On Nov. 2nd I attended a meeting at the Union League Club of Chicago where the No Child Left Behind law was discussed. At the same time a lunch was being held where others were focusing on ways to build better schools.

What these meetings had in common is that they were not connected to each other with an internet strategy that would have enabled participants from all three meetings to connect with each other, and with the speakers. They also did not have a strategy for engagement, that would increase the number of people personally involved in long-term efforts that help kids in poverty move to careers.

In September, people from the Connect for Kids group in Washington, DC helped me develop a letter to the editor that illustrated the role of tutoring/mentoring as a civic engagement strategy. I met Connect for Kids through internet networking and this is an example of what's possible when such networking is a strategic goal of people who host face-to-face meetings.

I sent my letter to the Chicago Tribune in mid October and it has not been published. So here it is for you to read:
--------------

What you can do to end Poverty, by Daniel F. Bassill

Alicia and Marquita were in elementary school when I first met them 15 years ago. They were normal kids, except they lived in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood of Chicago, where the role models and life experiences were anything but what normal kids in most parts of America grow up with. The Cabrini Green neighborhood has a high concentration of poverty, many people living on welfare, and strong street gang involvement. This is the neighborhood that shocked the nation in 1992 when 7-year old Dantrell Davis was shot and killed while walking to school. It’s a neighborhood where more than 40% of the kids drop out of high school before graduation, and where many who do graduate never move on to college and careers.

Today, Marquita has graduated from college and Alicia will do the same next year.

What happened to take these girls off the path toward poverty, and place them on a different path toward college and careers? The answer is simple, but powerful. They were able to participate in a comprehensive volunteer-based tutor/mentor program that connected them with adults who mentored them, helped with school work, talked about options and choices, and just plain cared. In elementary school they were able to participate in a program hosted by the Montgomery Ward Corporation in Chicago. After 6th grade they were able to transition to the Cabrini Connections tutor/mentor program, which has supported them for the past 12 years. This year they have become part of the adult tutor/mentor corps, and are now volunteering to help other Cabrini Green children move through school and into college then careers.

In the aftermath of Katrina, people in Chicago and across the nation are asking what we can do about poverty. I’m not a teacher by training and I don’t have special skills. I started mentoring a fourth grade boy living in Cabrini-Green in 1973 and became leader of a volunteer-based program in 1975. Thus I have 30 years of experience in recruiting volunteers and connecting them with inner-city kids. While I did not have much experience when I started, my understanding of the issues and my commitment to volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring has continued to grow with each passing year. I’ve learned the difference between being poor and being poor without hope.

I’ve also learned how tutoring/mentoring can be one of the best strategies for civic-engagement, workforce development and education reform. Long-term programs connect youth and adults from both sides of the economic and social divide in a long-term process of service and learning. This leads to a better understanding of poverty, and a stronger commitment to do what is needed to provide paths to hope and opportunity for kids who need extra support to succeed in school, move to college and find help in starting jobs and careers.

I would like every adult who is not living in poverty to become personally involved in helping build and sustain long-term tutor/mentor programs in every neighborhood where concentrated poverty is the largest obstacle to succeeding in school and moving to jobs and careers. That is how we are going to improve our schools, reduce youth violence, lower the costs of the juvenile justice system and meet the workforce needs of the 21st century.

The way to get everyone involved is for people from every walk of life – business, churches, hospitals and universities – to step up as leaders and make children living in low-wage families a priority. Businesses can use their intranets to provide information about where tutor/mentor programs are needed, and ways to contact existing programs. They can use their advertising to encourage employees and customers to volunteer in programs throughout the Chicago region. Universities can encourage their students to talk with local children about what college is like, and can develop research and teaching programs that connect students and alumni with training resources and tutor/mentor programs throughout the country. Every organization can use its website to publicize volunteer opportunities and to increase the number of people who are learning ways to become involved in tutor/mentor programs. The ways to take action are as endless as the numbers of children in need.

Such a leadership strategy needs to guide volunteers and donors to all neighborhoods where there are high concentrations of poverty, not just to the few brand name programs in highly visible neighborhoods. If we increase the number of people who are willing to commit time, talent and dollars to efforts that help end poverty, we will reduce dependency on government and build programs that last more than a few years.

No business would be successful if it advertised sometimes, and sometimes not. Children take a long time to grow up, and they will only be successful if adults like us get personally involved, stay involved, develop an understanding of poverty, and grow into leaders who bring in new volunteers to do the same. We’re building a system of support for this type of involvement. We call it the Tutor/Mentor Connection. You can find us and similar support networks that operate in other cities by using Internet search tools like www.Google.com .

By the time you read this, the media will probably be turning its attention away from poverty and to the next "hot" issue. But that doesn’t mean we have to turn our attention away from the children who need us.

---- end 2005 article ----

I'm pleased to report that in 2024 Alicia and Marquita are both doing well. I'm connected to them on Facebook, along with many other alumni from the tutor/mentor programs I led since 1975.  I'm seeing many now report on their own kids, or grandkids, finishing high school and college.  And, I'm seeing many starting new families.  

I found another letter in my files today. I wrote it to university contacts in 2008.  It included this paragraph, asking "What are all the things we need to do to assure that all youth in the city where your  university is located, or where your students and alumni live, are starting jobs/careers by age 25/"

You can read that full letter here.   

Imagine if students and faculty at various universities were looking at the documents in my archive, just as I am, and then were sharing them with others at their universities and where they alumni live and work.

Could we build a more consistent and innovative strategy to connect with kids and families in areas of persistent poverty with long-term support that helps them build jobs and careers so they can raise their own kids free of poverty?

I hope you'll share this and that another 65,000 people will view my article in April and every month after that.  Maybe that will increase the number who follow me on social media.

Maybe it will also increase the number who go to this page and make a contribution to help me continue collecting and sharing this information. 

National Mentoring Month

Below is a photo from 2001 when the US Post Office issued a mentoring stamp to help celebrate and draw attention to mentoring in America.  My organization (Tutor/Mentor Connection, 1993-present) introduced it during the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago, which I began hosting in May 1994 and continued hosting every six months until May 2015.

The conference was part of an on-going effort to help volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs reach K-12 kids in high poverty areas of Chicago and other places and help those kids through school and into jobs and careers, with the help of adults they met through these programs.

I began my volunteer involvement in 1973 when I joined the tutoring program at the Montgomery Ward Corporate Headquarters in Chicago. I was matched with a 4th grade boy named Leo and we met every Tuesday after my work day ended.  We're still connected over 50 years later!

During mentoring month much of the focus will be on the "act" of mentoring, which could be workplace mentoring and could be mentoring of youth with disabilities.  

I want that to expand to focus on the infrastructure of mentoring.  I demonstrate this below.

I created the graphic below several years ago to visualize the many different reasons mentoring and/or tutoring are needed and the different types of organized programs needed to meet each category.

Below is an another graphic, showing this information in a different way.

I've posted several articles in the past few years (here, here and here) talking about building a "segmented understanding" of what types of mentoring and tutoring are needed based on "who" is being mentored.  During National Mentoring Month I urge you to read some of these.  

While the above graphics visualize the different needs of youth in America, they don't show where these kids live and/or where organized tutor/mentor programs are most needed.  I've been trying to use GIS maps since 1994 to do this.  Below is a concept map that shows my history of using maps.

Between 1993 and 2010 the Tutor/Mentor Connection was able to collect and maintain information about organized volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago, which could be sorted by type of program (pure mentoring, tutor/mentor, pure tutoring), age group served (elementary, middle school, high school), time of day (school day, after school, evening/weekend), and location.

While we shared this information in a printed directory from 1994 to 2003 that rarely reached more than 1000 organizations (non profits, foundations, media, political, universities, etc.)  In 2004 a program locator was created that made this information available to the world. In 2008 a map-based program locator (shown above) was created that had the same search features as the 2004 program locator, but reversed the process, starting with a map of the Chicago region, then enabling a process of searching for programs and program supporters in specific zip codes, community areas or neighborhoods.

Visit this page to learn about our efforts to build the program locator and to find ideas for building your own version. 

Unfortunately, I've not been able to raise money or find partners since 2011 to systematically collect and segment information about Chicago programs or maintain the program locator directories. They are now only available as archives.  

That brings me back to National Mentoring Month.  

While most efforts will focus on the act of mentoring I hope leaders will step forward to build Tutor/Mentor Connection-type learning programs at one, or more universities in  Chicago and other urban areas, where students will duplicate the work my organization did from 1994 to 2010 and what I've tried to continue since then, through the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC.

I urge leaders to build a segmented understanding that not only shows what types of programs are needed and where they are most needed, but shows what programs already operate in these areas and are constantly searching for volunteers and donors.  Here's another page that shows uses of geographic information systems and data. 

Use this blog, the MappingforJustice blog and the http://www.tutormentorexchange.net website as a text book to build your understanding of what a Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy might be and how you might build it as part of a degree program on a college campus. 

Share what you are learning through your own blog articles and on social media so others can learn from you, just as I've been sharing so you can learn from me.  

Thanks for reading.  I hope you'll share this article with your network and connect with me on social media platforms (find links here). 

Finally, I want to give a special thank you to those who sent contributions in 2023 and in previous years to help me continue to do this work.  Please continue in 2024 and help me find a benefactor who will bring this strategy into a university. 

Visit this page to make a 2024 contribution. 

What if students in every city did this?

Today as I strolled through my social media platforms I came across a graphic created by Kevin Hodgson, from the #clmooc group.  You can see it in this blog article. 

I did my own remix, adding a New Year's wish. See it below.

The text in Kevin's graphic reads "We need to think differently about our culture. This is not simply augmenting our experience with technology. Claim  your space. Review. Remix. Make Meaning. Make Art. Damnit!"

I added a photo of me at my computer, with a map story on the screen. Then a photo of two of our interns from South Korea, looking at my articles and creating their own remix, their own interpretations.

The https://michaelcnt.blogspot.com/ blog was created in 2006 by an intern from Hong Kong and I've used it since then to share the work interns were doing. 

My message was "What if... this (the student sitting at the desk in Kevin's graphic) were students sharing ideas from http://tutormentor.blogspot.com?)

That has been a message I've shared over and over for the past 16+ years. Youth from every part of the world could be writing articles similar to what I've been writing, focused on using information libraries to "review" and "reflect" and focus on strategies that would make life better for people living in areas of concentrated poverty.

At every high school, college, faith institution and even non-school program in the USA (and the world) there could be a blog sharing student work generated over many years, attempting to build greater and more consistent attention and involvement in solving deeply entrenched, complex problems.  

In a few weeks I'm going to be writing an article showing my efforts since 1993 to build strategic alliances with local and global universities, which would lead to students doing the research and writing that I dream of.  

Below is a 2010 example of what I hope for.

This is one of five blogs created by students from DePaul University, who were part of an Explore Chicago class that studied different neighborhoods to determine the need for, and the availability of, tutor/mentor programs in different parts of the city.  This article has links to the 2010 blogs. This 2009 article describes the launch of the partnership with Tutor/Mentor Connection.

It was a great start, but did not last beyond 2010 and did not extend into other parts of the student learning curriculum at DePaul.   Yet, it is an example of what's possible.

I recognize that helping kids in high poverty areas is one huge issue that needs more consistent involvement, but that there are many other complex problems that need to be addressed.  Below is a concept map showing multiple issues.

Imagine having a concept map like this on a college website, where each node opened to a page where student blogs, videos, podcasts, etc. were aggregated over many years, focusing on a specific issue.  Such a strategy could appeal to a wide sector of the student body and could engage alumni as well.

Maybe someone is already doing this.  In fact, I know that many colleges and universities have student research and reflection programs, which annually produce reflections on problems and proposed solutions.  However, I don't have links to any who are aggregating these projects, by category, over multiple years, creating a knowledge base that alumni and others can use to actually solve the problems students are identifying.

Share your links in the comment section if you know of anyone doing this. 

Thank you for reading.  Please connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter (x), Mastodon, Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, Threads.  Find my links on this page.

Thank you to those who supported the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC with a gift to my 77th birthday campaign. 

If you want to help me continue this work in 2024 consider a gift to the FundT/MI campaign.

Maps. Planning. Teach Youth to Do this Work

Last week I posted an article showing a new data platform created by Argonne Labs, in partnership with the Northwestern University Digital Youth Network.  In that article I asked "How will it be used to make STEM learning and career opportunities available to youth through out the area?"  

That's what I'm addressing with today's article.  As you look at the rest of this article, keep the concept map below in mind.

What are the actions and programs that are working in some places, that could work in many other places, to help kids in high poverty areas move from birth-to-work? Is someone aggregating these into a library that others can draw from in their own planning?  Will people who build the data dashboards, build these concept maps?

Below is a collection of articles about ways to use maps and data dashboards to determine where youth and families need more help as young people move through school and into adult lives,  jobs and careers.

Since forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011 I've tried to teach people to use maps to focus attention and resources on specific places. This could be an entire city, or a small neighborhood.  This concept map is an example.

The articles I've shared in this collection are just a few of what you'll find in this blog, the Mapping for Justice blog and in the library of PDF essays on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC site.

My hope is that educators at colleges, universities, junior colleges, high schools and other institutions will use these articles in curriculum that results in more people applying these ideas in more places.

I've been focusing on this problem for over 30 years and thus there is an extensive collection of ideas on these blogs and in my website.  I realize that very few people visiting this blog will take time to read more than a few articles, at most.  Thus, there needs to be another way to draw consistent, long-term, attention and reflection.  Creating a Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy, or embedding these ideas into a strategy with a different name, such as the Digital Youth Network, is my solution.

Between 2005 and 2015 interns from various universities spent time looking at my blog articles then creating visualizations, videos and their own blog articles to share what they were learning. You can see their work on this blog.

Imagine if you were able to find a blog like this Intern blog, embedded on the website of dozens of universities, junior colleges, high schools, etc. in 2035, showing 10 years of learning and actions. 

That could change the world.

I created the concept map shown below to visualize the commitment leaders need to make to help kids born or living in high poverty areas of Chicago and other places be starting jobs and careers by their mid 20s. 

One role any of these leaders can take is to provide the funding that would motivate an institution to create a learning program based on the ideas in this blog.   That might not be YOU, but it might be someone you know. If you share this article with them, they might be inspired to take this role.

Thanks for reading. 

Connect with me on one of the social media platforms I show on this page.

Support my work in 2024 with a year end contribution to my Fund T/MI campaign. 

Or support Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC with a gift to recognize my 77th birthday on December 19. 

Last week I posted an article showing a new data platform created by Argonne Labs, in partnership with the Northwestern University Digital Youth Network.  In that article I asked "How will it be used to make STEM learning and career opportunities available to youth through out the area?"  

That's what I'm addressing with today's article. While data shows "where" people  need extra help, we still need blueprints to show "what help" is needed, and in what sequence.  For instance, in building a tower you don't start on the 4th floor.

Connecting the network - conferences

For 20 years, between May 1994 and May 2015 I hosted a Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago. During the first conference we shared our first printed directory showing volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs operating in Chicago and an ecosystem of researchers, foundations, support groups and others who needed to be working together to make sure well-organized programs were reaching K-12 youth in every high poverty area of Chicago.

In the tags at the left you will find a category for conferences with many posts from past years.  This 2017 post includes a presentation showing the different universities who hosted these conferences. That was part of an effort to build strategic partnerships where universities would use their own student, faculty and alumni talent to help build a pipeline of youth from high poverty areas through college and into jobs and careers. 

Visit this page on the conference website to read the goals.

- Draw leaders, volunteers, and stakeholders from more than 150 agencies together for networking and information sharing.

- Draw business and philanthropy partners into ongoing learning and partnership with tutor/mentor leaders

- Provide a vision for comprehensive, long-term mentoring that leads youth to careers

- Build trust and relationships among stakeholders to generate partnerships and information sharing during the months between each conference.

- Build awareness of online learning and networking resources and motivate a growing number of participants to use these tools for capacity improvement

The May/June Conference was intended to celebrate the work of youth and volunteers during the school year. It is also a time to share best practices, strengthen next year’s programs, and raise public awareness about the need for renewed support in the coming academic year. The work done in May can lead to more successful volunteer-recruitment strategies in August and September and more powerful resource-development strategies in November and December.

The November Conference took place shortly after the start of each school year when programs have recruited and placed students and volunteers. The focus of this conference is on teaching volunteers to be more effective tutors and mentors and fostering the leadership skills necessary to help programs grow. Since this conference is just before the year end holidays, its goal is also to make potential donors more aware of tutor/mentor programs so that when they choose to make a year-end donation, more tutor/mentor programs benefit from these gifts.

The work continues.

While I no longer host the conference I continue to try to draw people to information they can use to support youth and organized, volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs during the May and November time frames, and throughout the year.

Visit this page and read e-Learning goals that were first published in the early 2000s. 

Visit this page and see a map showing participants from throughout the country. 

If you're concerned about poverty and inequality in America, or education and workforce development, or social justice, there are actions you can take every day.  I created this list in 2007 and have shared it often since. Here's one article to read.

While we hosted conferences at most Chicago universities and have had interns from many colleges working with us, this has never led to a long-term strategic alliance.  Read this invitation to universities. This is needed more now than ever, because as I grow older finding a new owner for this vision, my websites and my archives, is more important than ever in the past. 

Thank you for reading.  Please connect with me on one, or more social media channels. Find links on this page. 

Finally, if you're able please visit this page and send a small contribution to help me do this work. 

Network Building - A Process

I've been building the Tutor/Mentor library since 1993 when I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection. 

The mission of the Tutor/Mentor Institute (T/MI) is to gather and organize all that is known about successful non-school tutoring/mentoring programs and apply that knowledge to expand the availability and enhance the effectiveness of these services to children throughout the Chicago region.

My daily journey through the Internet uncovers many resources that I add to the library. I draw attention to these by my e-mail newsletter, my blogs, my posts on social media, and my website.

Last Friday, and again today, I participated in a ZOOM call hosted by the Strategic Doing community, which I've followed on LinkedIn for many years. Below is a screenshot from last week's presentation, which you can view at this link.

If you view the mission statement of the Tutor/Mentor Connection you'll see that I've been trying to build a knowledge network, or ecosystem, of people, organizations and ideas that anyone can use to help kids from birth-to-work.

In today's ZOOM call the topic was "how universities solve complex problems".  Below is one of  many visualizations I've created to show long-term support kids need to move from birth-to-work.

I think universities could play a much greater role in helping kids in high poverty areas move through school, and college, into jobs, and then spend a lifetime helping others and working to solve complex social, economic and global problems.  

The challenge has always been to find someone in the university who would devote their career to building such a support system, involving others from the university, as well as alumni, business and community assets.

The graphic above is from this page on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website, showing eLearning goals that I first began to share back in the early 2000s.   

I organized Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences in Chicago every six months from May 1994 to May 2015 to bring parts of this ecosystem together.  The eLearning goals were developed as IUPUI helped us host our first (and only) on-line conference in 2004. My work on social media is a continuation of this effort.

The graphic below was created by students from Indiana University, and shows participation of organizations from throughout the USA in these conferences.

You can view the map in this article, and see universities that hosted conferences in this article.  

Below is a graphic showing work interns from different universities did between 2005 and 2015 to help me communicate ideas and strategies. 

These show what's possible from university engagement, but also share my frustration for never have been able to find a long-term partner at any of these universities who would apply their own time, talent and dollars to the strategies I've shared in many articles on this blog.

This has been made even more difficult as platforms where I connected with people have constantly changed over the past 20 years.  Even the www.tutormentorconnection.org site that was my primary resource from 1998 to 2018 is no longer available.

Since 2013 Twitter has been a growing source of network building and idea sharing. But recent changes in ownership are making that site much less reliable. So I've launched myself on new platforms.

Mastodon is one place where I can now be found.  It is a decentralized network of meeting places.  I've actually set up accounts on three, and am not yet close to the number of followers I have on Twitter.

Bluesky is another where I've recently began to build a network.  As with Mastodon, I'm not yet close to the following I have on Twitter. 

I have a page on the Tutor/Mentor website with links to these platforms and others where I'm trying to connect.  That's where you can also find my monthly newsletter. 

I've a section in the Tutor/Mentor library focused on collaboration and community building.  It has more than 50 links, including one to the Strategic Doing website.

One of the many challenges we face in solving complex problems is "drawing people to engage with each other,  on OUR platform.  I've spent 30 years building a body of knowledge on MY platform and on some of my social media networks.  Going into a platform hosted by someone else, and building a network is a huge challenge. It takes time. That's time I (and others) need to be spending drawing people to our platforms, and maintaining the quality of their content.

This is one reason there are so many silos, of people and organizations not connecting strategically with each other.  

In today's ZOOM call I asked the speaker if he had done any network analysis to know who was participating in his planning groups, and who was missing.  I had in mind the network analysis maps done by an intern working for me in 2010, which you can see in this blog article.  And, in this series of blog articles. 

One way I try to connect people is by putting them in my library and sharing their links via concept maps like the one below.  

This shows intermediaries in Chicago who focus on the well-being of youth.

If you look at the map you'll see a yellow text box in the lower right corner with the heading "Help Update This".  It asks "are there other Chicago area intermediary groups that can be added to this map? And it says "I need research help to know what businesses,  universities, philanthropy orgs, etc. support volunteer based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago."

If someone is hosting that information on their website I can add them to my library and my maps and help them connect those organizations to each other.  

This is work students at any high school or university could be doing....to help me update my Chicago area information, and to build similar maps and libraries for other communities.

One of the comments on today's Strategic Doing call came from someone in the business community who talked of how there is a need to achieve results through short term involvement. That's one of the problems.  Look at the graphic below, which you can view in this article.

This visualizes a goal of pulling youth through school and into adult lives, with support starting as early as preschool and lasting each year for 20-30 year....for each youth! Just building a network of stakeholders who understand and support this goal would take several years. Building such a network at many universities would take even longer.  Getting agreement on goals and setting up programs that engage students, faculty, alumni and community would take even longer. Then comes the year-to-year work, evaluation and constant improvement that improves what the university community does, and fills high poverty areas surrounding a university with a pipeline of birth-to-college-to-work programs.

Note that the far right part of this graphic focuses on helping some students graduate and take life-time careers in direct service programs while others graduate who make life-long commitments to support these alumni with time, talent and dollars.

Show me a university with a visualization that communicates this goal.  Or that is connecting the ecosystem of the university in efforts to achieve the goal.

There's no way I can communicate this with an introduction on a new platform, or a social media post, or a comment during a ZOOM call.  I need to motivate people to read my blog articles and study the information on my website, then share what they are learning via their own blogs and videos, just as interns did between 2005 and 2015.

However, this needs to be a multi-year learning process, perhaps part of a Masters or PhD program, not a short term internship.

Who can help make that happen?  

Thanks for reading. And thank you to those who visit this page and send contributions to help me do this work.  

Building and Sustaining Mentor-Rich Support Systems for K-12 Youth

Chicago will have a new mayor in a few days and he has huge challenges facing him.  I think many of those center around how he builds and sustains a mentor-rich support system that reach k-12 kids in every high poverty area of the city and helps more of those kids move safely through school and into adult lives.

I've been sharing strategies for over 25 years, based on my own leadership of a non-school tutor/mentor programs and what I've learned from other programs in Chicago and other places, as well as what I learned in 17 years of retail advertising for the Montgomery Ward Corporation, 4 years as a Loaned Executive with the United Way and 3 years in Army Intelligence. 

Those ideas are on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website and in articles posted on this blog since 2005.  

Below I'm reposting an article from 2016 that I hope you'll read and share with Mayor Johnson, and with leaders in other cities.

----- start 2016 article ----

I've been using graphics like this for more than 20 years to communicate the vision of long-term volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs that connect with youth as early as elementary and middle school, then do everything they can to help those kids move through school and toward jobs and careers.  If you do a Google search for "tutor mentor" my sites are frequently in the first five. If you then look at the "images" feature, you'll see dozens of maps and visualizations. You can click on each to find the article where the image was used.

In many of my graphics I combine maps with network-building visualizations. This is one. The circle in the middle represents the knowledge that's available to us through the internet, and through the contacts we make with others. The two images to the left of the circle represent intermediaries, like myself, who collect and share the information, and use blog articles and social media to "nudge" the network. The second image represents people who read these stories, then re-post them to people in their own networks, who then form "learning circles" who read, reflect, discuss, then act.

Sort of what happens in faith groups every Saturday or Sunday, except these groups use maps to focus their attention and resources on neighborhoods where tutor/mentor and learning programs are most needed.

This is the front page of many of the PDF articles I share on Scribd.com.  Our learning should be intended to help strong, and constantly improving tutoring, mentoring and learning programs be available in all high poverty neighborhoods. That means we need to influence what resource providers do as well as what program leaders and policy makers do.   In this animation I describe volunteer involvement in a tutor/mentor program as a form of adult "service learning". 


Since starting the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 I've recognized the need to dig deeper into the library of Chicago area youth serving programs that I've been hosting, to learn about their history and infrastructure, so we know more about what it takes to connect youth and volunteers in long-term relationships that transform the lives of both.  This graphic recognizes that much of the work that needs to be done is not visible to someone just spending an hour or two a week as a tutor/mentor, or to someone reading a one page summary included in a grant proposal.

I've never had the staff or finances to dig deeply into this information, thus have reached out to universities and others to share this work, I created the presentation below to show that community information collection is a shared responsibility.

Community Information Collection: A Shared Effort by Daniel F. Bassill

I created another pdf that I titled "Shoppers Guide" to suggest elements that researchers would look for as they studied different youth serving organizations, or that volunteers, parents and/or donors might look for on web sites of youth serving organizations.

Shoppers Guide for Choosing a Tutor/Mentor Program to Support by Daniel F. Bassill

There's a lot of information in my blog articles and on my web sites, representing information and ideas collected over the past 40 years.  It's not something that anyone can master in one or two sessions. Yet college degrees are earned over four to eight years of study. And people have been gathering in big and small groups weekly for over two thousand years to understand the scripture collected in the Torah and the Bible.  

When you read a newspaper story, or Tweet that talks about the bad things happening in our world, where do you go to find ideas for making those negatives change into something better? Or do you even try?

Anyone, anywhere, can take this role.

If you have read this far, your next step is to share this, so others read and reflect, then pass the ideas on to others in their own networks. Through this network-building we'll find people with special talents and resources who will help make a greater difference in the world with the ideas we're sharing. 

 --- end 2016 article ---

I started tutoring in 1973 and was matched with a 4th grade boy named Leo Hall.  We've stayed connected for 50 years.  Over the past few years I've broadcast that Leo was in need of a kidney transplant.  I'm thrilled to say he received that last month and now is in full recovery.

I share these posts on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Mastodon (see links here). I hope you'll connect with me and share these ideas with your own networks.

I also hope a few readers will go to this page and make a small contribution to help me continue to do this work.  Thank you.  

Building Future Youth Program Leaders - ChatGPT article

On March 20, 2019 I wrote this article about the role universities could take in growing future leaders, and supporters, of youth tutor/mentor programs. The title was "Tipping Point - Growing and Supporting Future Leaders"

A couple of weeks ago during a ZOOM reunion with educators I'd met via the #ETMOOC event held in January 2013 we started talking about ChatGPT, which is an artificial intelligence tool used for writing articles.  We decided to create a mini MOOC to explore this and help each other learn to use it.

I've never used ChatGPT before but I looked at this video and decided to give it a test today. 

My interest is in how I, or others, could use Chat GPT to rewrite my past blog articles, making them more readable, and more interesting.  I used the March 20, 2019 article. After a few prompts, below was the result:

Begin ChatGPT version - 

Tutor/mentor programs are essential to helping young people from underserved communities succeed in school and prepare for successful careers. Universities have a critical role to play in building future leaders for these programs and fostering support from businesses and philanthropists to help them grow in more places.

While it's important to equip graduates with the skills and knowledge needed to build and lead mentor-rich youth-serving organizations, it's also essential to recognize that only a few graduates from each university will become leaders and staff in these programs. Most will go on to careers in business, entertainment, medicine, and other fields. However, universities can still play a vital role in supporting these graduates to be proactive in providing ongoing funding to support the few who do become directly involved with tutor/mentor programs.

To achieve this vision, universities could offer a comprehensive four to six-year master's or PhD program, starting in the freshman year of college, designed to train students to become effective tutors and mentors and to build and lead successful youth-serving organizations. This program could include coursework in education, psychology, social work, leadership, grant writing, fundraising, and program management, essential for building and sustaining successful tutor/mentor programs.

Students could participate in on-going practical learning, serving in existing programs and reaching youth as young as elementary school. This service could be tied to coursework being studied on campus at different points over their college career. The program could also offer opportunities for students to connect with local tutor/mentor programs, as well as networking events with business and community leaders who are passionate about education and youth development.

Additionally, universities could provide ongoing post-graduation support to both the few graduates who become directly involved with tutor/mentor programs and the majority who go into other fields. By training all graduates to be proactive in providing ongoing funding and support for these programs, universities can help to create a sustainable network of programs that can make a real difference in the lives of young people.

By investing in the development of future leaders who are committed to this cause and supporting ongoing funding and support for these programs, universities can help to build a strong and sustainable network of programs that can make a real difference in the lives of young people. By working together, we can create a future in which all young people have access to the resources and support they need to succeed in school and in life.

---- end ChatGPT version ----

I think this is a pretty good summary of what I've been trying to say to universities through articles in this section, and in this section, of this blog. 

Students in high school and college who are exploring artificial intelligence writing tools such as ChatGPT, could do what I did today and pick out articles on this blog and explore ways to rewrite them to help share the ideas with people at their schools and in their communities.

I've only begun my exploration. One thing that ChatGPT did not do was pick up the many images I've embedded in my articles or the links I embed to other articles or other websites.  That might be possible, but I don't know (and I'm only using the FREE version). 

I'm creating an archive to show my exploration and once I have a few articles I'll share it via my Google Drive so others can see how I asked multiple questions and looked at multiple revisions.  

Below is a graphic created by an intern from South Korea, vis IIT in Chicago,  in 2013.

View the graphic on this page and find more articles showing intern work on this blog. These show work interns did between 2006 and 2015 to build and share understanding of ideas I've shared since forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993.

A blog like this could be at every university and high school in the country (or the world) sharing work students have done to communicate these ideas, using any tool available to them, including ChatGPT.

The key point in all of my articles is that this work needs to be on-going, for multiple decades, and reaching youth in EVERY high poverty area of Chicago and other places.  Strategies that support on-going involvement are needed in every city and they need to last beyond the term of any Mayor, Governor or President.

If you're already doing this please share links to your work.