Male mentors needed....

I received a message from Keith Klein who is very active with DeMolay International, which is a young man's fraternity. See what he had to say about the state of boys in our society.

Please read the following excerpt from the January 30, 2006, issue of Newsweek carefully. Please note the sections I have bolded and colored blue.
Yes, the article speaks to issue of education - but you cannot escape the presence of the word mentor. For my purposes and for DeMolay, read the word mentor as - Advisor.
I have been spending a great deal of time of late thinking about change and what we (DeMolay) and the rest of the Masonic Family can do to embrace the times in which we now find ourselves.
For DeMolay I would say - stay strong...grow and welcome as many young men as possible. In DeMolay's key active member and initiate age demographics there is a definite parallel with a crucial time in a young man's life. A time when, as is noted in the complete Newsweek article - young men (boys) need to be with other young men (boys) of a similar age. What better argument could there be for the need for, and a purpose for, DeMolay - TODAY.
For the Masonic family which has numerous wonderful causes - what better purpose could the Adult members of the Masonic Family have then to assure the highest quality possible next generation and the one after that and the one after that.
We need Advisors. Young men (boys) need role models. If we truly believe in what the organizations in the Masonic Family are about - then there could be no higher calling or purpose than to make a difference in the life of a young man.
I strongly urge you all to read the entire Newsweek article and think DeMolay as you do. I'm willing to bet a light will come on when you do that. It smacked me in the head and maybe that is what we need - a jolt of reality and a new purpose to an old mission.
Keith

Newsweek, January 30, 2006 issue
The Trouble With Boys
One of the most reliable predictors of whether a boy will succeed or fail in high school rests on a single question: does he have a man in his life to look up to? Too often, the answer is no. High rates of divorce and single motherhood have created a generation of fatherless boys. In every kind of neighborhood, rich or poor, an increasing number of boys—now a startling 40 percent—are being raised without their biological dads.
Psychologists say that grandfathers and uncles can help, but emphasize that an adolescent boy without a father figure is like an explorer without a map. And that is especially true for poor boys and boys who are struggling in school. Older males, says Gurian, model self-restraint and solid work habits for younger ones. And whether they're breathing down their necks about grades or admonishing them to show up for school on time, "an older man reminds a boy in a million different ways that school is crucial to their mission in life."
In the past, boys had many opportunities to learn from older men. They might have been paired with a tutor, apprenticed to a master or put to work in the family store. High schools offered boys a rich array of roles in which to exercise leadership skills—class officer, yearbook editor or a place on the debate team. These days, with the exception of sports, more girls than boys are involved in those activities.
In neighborhoods where fathers are most scarce, the high-school dropout rates are shocking: more than half of African-American boys who start high school don't finish. David Banks, principal of the Eagle Academy for Young Men, one of four all-boy public high schools in the New York City system, wants each of his 180 students not only to graduate from high school but to enroll in college. And he's leaving nothing to chance. Almost every Eagle Academy boy has a male mentor—a lawyer, a police officer or an entrepreneur from the school's South Bronx neighborhood. The impact of the mentoring program, says Banks, has been "beyond profound." Tenth grader Rafael Mendez is unequivocal: his mentor "is the best thing that ever happened to me." Before Rafael came to Eagle Academy, he dreamed about playing pro baseball, but his mentor, Bronx Assistant District Attorney Rafael Curbelo, has shown him another way to succeed: Mendez is thinking about attending college in order to study forensic science.