 Hello, my name is Ann Smith and this is Perspectives. My guest today is Glenn Nürbach, dear friend and teacher at Portland High School and director of the Portland Mentoring Alliance. Before I start asking Glenn questions, I thought I'd give you an overview of his career highlights. Glenn was a middle school social studies teacher here in Portland for 13 years and then he was asked to join the main department of education for a three year, I guess you call it a sabbatical. Then the deal was they would pay for his salary but he would keep his tenure position, his connection to Portland school systems and he became a distinguished educator for civic education and service learning from 2006 to 2009. He was also somewhat overlapping during that time the president of the main council of social studies from 2008 to 2014. He has been since he returned to the public school system, the director of Portland Mentoring Alliance for eight years. His career as a social studies teacher and as a leader in the social studies curriculum has reinforced what I think are some of his most outstanding qualities, which is a mind that is incredibly open to the diversity of human nature. And yet Glenn, you were born in a blue collar neighborhood in New Jersey and on one occasion I asked you what the biggest influence was in your childhood towards what I see as your strong character as a person who accepts everybody with an open mind and you said it was a little bit unusual. It wasn't so much that the person taught you as gave you a different kind of example. Would you begin by sharing that with us? Sure, and thank you for having me. It's nice to be here. Yeah, I grew up in Bayonne, New Jersey and it was a blue collar town. It had the dubious distinction for a number of years of having the most bars and liquor stores per capita in the United States and my father owned one of those taverns. And at the time the show All in the Family was very popular and my father growing up in a different age I think identified more with the character Archie Bunker laughing with him rather than at him. And I think probably I was more the Rob Reiner character, Mike Stivick in terms of my openness towards people who are different, different color, different cultures and so forth. And so it made for a little bit of uneasy upbringing with regard to different values. I think my father knows better now that he's passed on but it opened my mind into why I believe we are all the same deep down, we have the same hopes and dreams and aspirations and fears and concerns. And then I went to a public university Rutgers University and I have some friends of mine were African American basketball buddies and I got to see once I got to know them one on one that there really were no differences that we really shared a lot of the same interests and hopes and everything. So that influenced my those two factors influenced a lot of my values I'd have to say. So in other words, you didn't grow up in an inner city with a wildly diverse culture like many of the citizens of Portland are now. Instead you grew up pretty much in a white community and then it was your attitude and then the people you met at Rutgers that opened your mind even further. You've won quite a few awards as a social studies teacher and you and I as both being teachers have talked a lot about curriculum. When you taught social studies at the middle school level here in Portland you acquired a reputation for creating very meaningful classroom units. You told me you prefer the long ones because that's where there's more depth. Would you start by telling us a little bit about the philosophy of education that influenced you? I know you told me it wasn't your own philosophy but I'd like to hear more about it. Yeah thank you. I've been told or I've heard anyway that the new three R's of education aren't reading, writing, arithmetic but they're relationships, relevance, and rigor and when I was teaching middle school I employed that philosophy in my classroom and the way that it pertained to me and to my students was that I believed that by establishing positive relationships with students taking an interest in what they're interested in and really caring about them that they would come to trust that what I had to teach them had relevance to their lives and I would always try to connect as a social studies teacher what I was teaching to something that was going on in the world and in their world and once they saw the relevance I found that I was able to crank up the rigor and the kids would always overachieve because they knew that I cared about them and they knew that it had relevance to their lives and they would always exceed expectations with the units that I would put together and teach them and I think they got a lot out of it. I see that still continuing in your relationships with students in the Portland Mentoring Alliance. I work with you with us with another group which we'll talk about later but I have often come to you in great angst and frustration saying you know I'm really getting tired of this particular student and then you always find a way for me to see it in a positive manner and build on that relationship so that it won't deteriorate and I appreciate that I wanted you to know that. I know you also told me that like I said you like to do long units you did a unit called immigration and citizenship which would share that with us. Yeah there were several units that I really enjoy teaching because of their relevance and one in particular had to do with immigration and citizenship and it was an integrated unit so all the teachers in our house took part and my part of it involved helping the students understand the history of immigration to this country and after we learned about the history I engaged them in an authentic simulation where they took on the persona each of them took on the persona of an actual immigrant knowing their biography and they were asked to come to school that day dressed as that immigrant and go through processing stations which were staffed by other students who were trained to be processors adopting the mentality of the time which wasn't being entirely fair to everybody from every country. Like Ellis Island. Like Ellis Island was it was actually called an Ellis Island simulation and these were actual true immigrants who came through there so there might be a businessman there might be a mother with three children who's pregnant with her fourth child and so the girl would come in with a pillow under her dress and they had to go through in character each of the stations and I was there with a video camera making believe I was coming from the future to try to bring back a documentary of their experiences and the kids really loved it and they were some of them expressed fear that they would get deported because each of the processors had a stamp that stamped their paperwork as either being accepted or not and it was really authentic and later in reflection pieces the kids wrote how much they got out of that and enjoyed it and that led up to the actual the most authentic piece of the unit had to do with a naturalization ceremony that the kids got to plan we wrote a grant and got money for that and so the students decorated the school got to know the countries where the immigrants came from who were being naturalized in our gym in the school gym and they they were assigned particular families when they came to the school to talk to them and talk about their native country and they serve them coffee and tea and pastries that morning before the ceremony actually started and then they were the people who were becoming citizens were impressed that they got to know that they knew that these students knew about their backgrounds in their country and their culture and then they escorted them into the gym and sat there as the citizens the new immigrants became citizens and before the ceremony we process with the students what the oath of allegiance actually meant breaking it down to language that they could understand and while the new immigrants when the immigrants became citizens after they raised their hand and took the oath of allegiance I would look at my students and a number of them would be crying and later after the ceremony I asked why were you crying and they said now we know what it truly means to be an American you know and and so that to me that's the deepest learning that can take places when it touches not just the head but the heart and and the students I think really got a lot out of that and they also gave the immigrants the new citizens gifts and in the receiving line afterwards so it was a very meaningful unit for everyone involved we did it three times when I was there and I'm happy to say that the person who took my place when I left the middle school continues with that unit even to this day so I feel like I've left a little piece of myself behind that's wonderful I I did want to ask you briefly when you took your sabbatical for three years and worked with the distinctly when you were a distinguished educator for civic education and service learning kind of what that involved with without going into too much detail because that's a whole different aspect of teaching but what what did you do then well I was asked to promote civic education and service learning to teachers throughout the stage where there was receptivity for that it came at a time when the new main learning results were just being published and and I got to work with them work with teachers I also established a social studies professional development network at the Department of Education which several of whose members are now part of the main council for the social studies and so it was a meaningful time to do that and I also was able to put on some conferences while I was at the Department of Ed for professional development for social studies educators something at the main council continues to do to this day I'm sure those programs were wonderful especially the idea of sharing with other educators I found that that when we started to do that over in New Hampshire where I taught that made a big difference in many schools and made for a lot of good ideas that I hadn't had before then you came back to Portland High School and as the director of the Portland Mentoring Alliance a program that had already existed for 17 years please tell us just a little bit about that program and then we're going to talk about what that program does now sure well around 1992 a main med executive from main medical center and the principal of Portland High at the time got together over a cup of coffee I've been told and decided wouldn't be wonderful to have a program that would match an adult mentor with any student who wanted one and so they this program was launched as a result of that meeting and initially it was intended for the most at-risk students those who weren't buying into school and it didn't go over very well because the kids weren't buying into schools they weren't necessarily buying into the mentoring relationships around the same time Portland became a refugee resettlement community and the population of the school the demographics changed and the program really resonated with newly arrived immigrant refugee students who were trying to assimilate into new culture learn a new language get onto a career path or a college track and so the adult mentors the program is open for any student who would like a mentor but it especially resonates with the multilingual population in Portland right now and 24 years into the program each year for the past several years since I've been involved we've matched anywhere between 100 students a year one-on-one individually with mentors and it entails three parts would you like me to go into this now or did you have another question no that's go ahead that's all right that's because that's to me the that's how I've known you all along is working with this yeah well the three parts of the program the three legs of the stool as I like to say our academic support where a mentor feels confident and comfortable so if it's an newly arrived student from another country and they're just learning English it might involve tutoring or reinforcing what they're learning in their English language learner or ELL classes if it's a student who's been here for a while and they're on a college track and their parents don't know anything about the college process the mentor could provide great assistance by helping the student with their FAFSA their financial aid form with editing their college essay with looking for scholarship opportunities or taking them on a college visit these are all really meaningful up parts of the program and then the third part of the program is the socialization having a trusted friend enroll model help a student as they acclimate and assimilate into American culture so each of these parts vary with each of the relationships between a mentor and a mentee in some cases it might just be heavily weighted towards the academic support in others it might be more the socialization but I try to make matches based upon common interests common second language so if a mentor speaks French and a student has French as one of their languages that makes for a solid match and often students express interest in certain careers like law or medicine I try to find mentors that either are in those fields or have an interest and expertise in those fields to create matches so the program has been very viable now for almost a quarter century and we're going to be celebrating our 25th anniversary in 2017 wow that's great I know because I know how wonderful the program is because I've seen the growth in some of my students that I work with indirectly through you so many of the mentors become it seemed to become very very involved with these kids they they care about them and when you're here for the first time you when you're struggling along with so many unknowns and you don't have anyone in your family who can help you it's wonderful to know that there's someone you can go to particularly the whole process of going on to higher education after you graduate but also the mentoring alliance has become sort of an umbrella for a number of other organizations such as the one that I'm infiliated with Bright Future and 4-H would you tell us more about their involvement and how that connects to your your mentoring alliance well very grateful that volunteers like yourself and and others Mitch Mason from the 4-H program and a company of girls the granted another grant funded organization are involved with the with the part of the mentoring alliance and they become important satellite programs to the to the one-on-one mentoring that I facilitate because it provides enrichment and the enrichment could involve something like what you do bringing in guest speakers who provide perspective on things like students establishing the importance of establishing good credit or bank accounts or volunteer opportunities you know I'm always impressed with the know the wide range of speakers that you bring in to help students understand more about how to become involved in effective citizens and really get their feet on the ground in this country and and so that we've been collaborating now for I think four years and it's four years four years and it's been a wonderfully rewarding mutually satisfying I think relationship with the 4-H program that facilitated as I said by Mitch Mason who's the director of the University of Maine Cooperative Extension youth education program and he involves some of the same students that you work with and others in volunteer opportunities say shopping and cooking for Ronald McDonald House he also has coordinated college visits so in May for the past three years we've gone to the University of Maine in Orinno for an old for a two-day and overnight visit where the students attend workshops and they get a feel of what college life is about last April we went to Boston visit Harvard University did some fun things there and this coming April Mitch and the students on the leadership committee are coordinating a visit to New York City to visit Columbia University and do some things there so it's wonderful to have a relationship with all these outside organizations because it does provide as I said this wonderful enrichment to the program the one on one mentoring program and to have involved volunteers conscientious volunteers like yourself and the other people I've mentioned is a real God sent for me and makes my job easier and it provides this wealth of you know positive vibes and positive reinforcement for what the students are learning in school and as you said I mean teenagers are different from little kids little kids usually will connect pretty freely with just about anybody but with this wide number of organizations and individual mentors you always seem to have at least a for a student at Portland High School who's looking for someone to ask questions of there's always somebody they're going to find and be able to connect with I've gone to the bowling event several times which is an annual event sometimes two or three times I've gone to that one several times and I can't bowl anymore I was quite sugared to find out now I have to use score but I enjoy that every time I go can I just add a little something to that oh sure you mentioned it I'm also very grateful to three corporations that have been involved almost since the beginning of the program I think two have been since the beginning main medical center Unum and Wex or the three and they provide some funding that and that allows me to coordinate bowling events and other ones like tickets to Merrill auditorium where perhaps some of these students could not afford to get in but we were able to go to different performances there to provide cultural enrichment and broadening students horizons so at least once a month I put on a different type of activity for mentors and mentees and it's not mandatory it's meant to be something that appeals to to their interests but I think it is rewarding for mentors to get to know one another at these events and also for the students to have some fun and show that it's not meant to be just a an academic program it's it reinforces the socialization aspect of the program how many how many youth in your program presently would be combined with a mentor how many pairs of mentees and mentors do you have I have around 80 mentor mentee pairings right now and and some are focused more on the tutoring like I said and others take in all three aspects of it and some of the tutoring relationships eventually develop into full mentoring relationships because the key is establishing trust showing a student that you care and then it's that heart to heart connection that really develops into the true fruits of the program and the thing that always touches me is you know I'm the matchmaker but the real work if you want to call it that or or joy comes from the building of the relationship and it always touches me at graduation each year when I'm walking around following the graduation and I'm seeing the joy and sometimes some tears in the eyes of the mentors knowing that they were there to help their mentee get to that point perhaps a little more quickly or maybe a little with higher grades or maybe get them on a college track in a more timely fashion than they would have if they didn't have that extra support in their life you have a little video that we're going to include probably right about this point in in our interview which basically has mentors and mentees talking about the how much meaningful this experience has been for them and we are also going to include throughout this program particularly during the last part pro photographs of kids connecting to other people you want your community to be strong you want the people around you to be self-sufficient and have good self-esteem so these are all things that I think that the parliamentary alliance helps it's a pretty easy process you do have to fill out a form and you do have to have a background check obviously we you know want to make sure kids are safe I think we're supposed to spend I signed a contract supposed to spend about an hour a week together but we typically spend about an hour and a half two hours together we talk about things that are very important but we can do it on a very casual basis people come together they feel more like a family and you learn something from them I've learned so much about different cultures and I've learned so much about my own culture through the questions that kids ask she's definitely a good friend of mine not just a mentee at this point she's a friend but like family I think connecting with somebody like that makes me feel that I'm not alone and that's reassuring 25 years as of January 2017 which is when this program is airing do you still need more help well I never turned down a mentor who want a volunteer who wants to become a mentor I'll always find someone for that person to mentor right now I'm in pretty good shape this year anyway for matches but the interesting thing about Portland is there always new students coming into the school in all the schools from other countries and transferring internally and I'm always receptive to bringing new students into the program so if I didn't have somebody to match with immediately I would keep that mentor's application on file until I found someone that could be matched and it's a rolling application process I accept applications throughout the year because even though we may be entering say the spring semester if a volunteer was interested in being matched with a ninth grader or a tenth grader or even 11th grader and wanted to continue beyond the one year they would have that relationship already established so you could hit the ground running when this when this subsequent school year begins so I'll never turn down an application I'll be happy to meet a perspective mentor anywhere coffee shops throughout the school wherever is convenient and I make matches throughout the year even in May and June I know four years ago when you and I started working together both my friend Anthony Bessia and I wanted very much to become involved somehow with your program and we weren't sure exactly how we wanted to fit in I know Bessia wanted to fit in in the way of sharing what he's learned as a person who is also a refugee what he's learned during his experience how to become an American I don't think I've ever met anybody from another country who was as an enthusiastic American as Bessia even to wearing a red white and blue bandana on his head because he loves this country so much and four years ago you had a sudden influx of I think they were pretty much central African refugees a lot of Rwandans Burundians many older many who were you know like in their junior or senior year and so we you invited us basically to start our group and I will never forget that first year was so meaningful to me I've never learned so much in my whole life in such a short time the boys that I remember the best named the group right future what did you see what did you see that made that program success because it's still going on now well I think it was successful first of all because of your your and Bessia's enthusiasm for it and and how the connection with Bessia especially with his enthusiasm for citizenship influenced the new the students from the set the African countries and how it helped them to understand what it truly means to be an American citizen I also think that the the time the care the consideration that you put in to create interesting activities for them I I think to the back to the three students two from Rwanda one from Burundi who you connected with the deputy sheriff's deputy program at st. Joseph's college where they spent a week learning how to become a deputy for their program there and seeing them in their uniforms and how proud they were for that I mean I think that instilled a certain sense of confidence and leadership ability in them and all three of them are doing very well right now in college even though they first came here things were fairly uncertain in their lives so I think again it goes back to the three Rs the relationships the relevance especially those two and then it's up to them to find the rigor but I think that they've all been successful all the students who've been involved with it and that's why the program has been viable and continuing into its fourth year I really enjoyed having you here as my guest today Glen and we're going to put up at the very end another announcement again of how they can reach you it's also I know was in the video that we saw but I do want people who are interested in this program to call you to offer their services if they'd like to try being a mentor even if they could you know come to an activity and get to know the kids thank you very much for being my guest today thank you for having me and we will definitely I may invite you back for some other interesting discussions thank you you know where to find me thank you so much for joining us today I've enjoyed doing this show for quite some time and I hope you're looking forward to our next program