Stage 1: Getting to Know One Another

We talked about the very beginning of this stage in the previous section when we learned how to communicate with your mentor for the first time.

During this stage you will want to:

• Talk to your mentor about how s/he got involved in mentoring.
• Write about your hobbies, activities and interests and ask about your mentor's
• Share some information about your home, school and family and ask your mentor about her/his workplace

As you feel more comfortable with your mentor, you might want to:

• Share stories about family or school conflicts/difficulties and how they were resolved ­ or how you wish they had been resolved
• Ask your mentor about his/her difficulties growing up and how s/he overcame them
• Talk about difficulties you're facing and how you're dealing with them. Ask your mentor's advice

We want to make sure you're well-prepared for your mentoring relationship, so we must bring up one more thing: diversity. That's right, you and your mentor are sure to have many things in common, but you'll have differences, too.

Here are some possible ways you and your mentor might be different. Can you think of others?

• Language
• Personality
• Race/ethnicity
• Age
• Interests
• Religion
• Sexuality
• Values
• Geography (where you and your mentor live and were born)

Differences can add something interesting to the relationship and make it really cool. Acknowledging and exploring the diversity between you and your mentor will help prepare you for the diversity you'll encounter as an adult in a multicultural world.

Once you feel like you know your mentor, your relationship will move on to the next stage.