By Anne-Marie Lefebvre

When children learn how to speak or use a toothbrush, they first observe the models around them and then imitate these models. For adolescents to learn the language of trades and occupations, they must also have access to models to find about their daily work and see how they fit in before deciding what to choose. They must discover their own values, interests, capabilities and limits, cherish dreams, set goals for themselves, and imagine a world in which the future belongs to them. They must confront their expectations with reality, dare and attempt to push back the limits of the unattainable.

These adolescents must also be supported and encouraged so that they do not give up. To make informed and meaningful choices, they ask for better information on the trades that interest them and for answers to fundamental questions, such as: “What is it like to work for a day as a lighting specialist or a webmaster?” “What is teamwork like in a patrol car or an ambulance?”

Through e-mentoring, 42,000 secondary and collegiate students throughout Québec encounter the world of trades and occupations though the relationship of trust they can maintain with the 2,700 e-mentors connected to the secure Web platform: academos.qc.ca. These passionate workers, open to discussion, guide, encourage and listen to young people in addition to informing them about the realities of an unfamiliar working world.

Thanks to e-mentoring, more than 80% of the students affirm that their mentor had an influence on their career choice.¹

Active participation in Academos e-mentoring contributes to increase school motivation, because the pleasure of learning is developed when the students make connections between what they learn in school and a career that interests them. Going to school thus becomes a personal choice for perseverance. Émilie Boudreau, Secondary 5, gives this testimonial of confidence in the future: “If I had never been on Academos, I would have taken a path that I would have abandoned along the way. I would have wasted time and money in my studies. Thanks to this site, I know where I’m going and I’m no longer afraid of the future, which has always frightened me up to now.”

E-mentoring is a tool to favour in any guidance or school perseverance activity, and in any individual or group planning that seeks to develop dynamic commitment by students in the construction of their identity and their career project.

A total of 250 schools and 10 CÉGEPs integrated e-mentoring into their courses this year. Jacques Cloutier, a Secondary 5 integrative project teacher, 75% of whose students participated in e-mentoring this year, affirms that he is “… very impressed with the quality of the e-mentors’ answers, provided that the questions are also relevant and developed, and the young people also appreciate this service.” Like more than 70% of the school stakeholders, he “… will repeat the experience next year, with even more emphasis on the quality of the questions to maximize the Academos experience”.

Anne-Marie Lefebvre, c.o., is currently a Development Officer at Academos E-mentoring, after holding positions as a school and college guidance counsellor (public and private, youth and adult) for over 25 years. In March 2102, at the AQISEP colloquium, she co-facilitated a workshop presenting ways of using e-mentoring outside the Personal Orientation Project (POP) course.

¹ Survey of 112 school stakeholders using e-mentoring in May 2012.