Author Archives: Mentor College / TEAM School

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About Mentor College / TEAM School

Tutorial and Educational Assistance in Mississauga, or TEAM School, was established in 1981 to strengthen the learning skills of students. Located in the heart of Mississauga, TEAM School is a non-denominational private school recognized by the Ontario Ministry of Education. Founded in 1982, Mentor College educates children from junior kindergarten through to the university entrance level. Children at Mentor College are grouped by age and experience in three levels of study: Untitled-1primary, intermediate, and high school. These groupings follow the curriculum set out by the Ontario Ministry of Education for all schools in the province.

Have A Safe & Enjoyable March Break!

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Well I think it is official…everyone I know is sick of winter.

I think I may have been the last holdout. I was gazing appreciatively at the fluffy, fat flakes falling on Tuesday and thought “this is so nice”. The following day, when I was walking to the Primary Campus in the fresh carpet of white and realized that there was still about 10 centimetres of thick ice on the field that is going to take forever to melt though, I decided that enough is enough. I love snow and like the cold but I do not like slush.

If you are a skiier, I know there is no way the base is going anywhere in the next 2 weeks so I hope you get some great spring skiing done. If you are making like Anne Murray and Snowbirding somewhere, soak up the sun while you can; you are just going to get soaked when you get back…with wet snow and slush! And if you are going to be staycationing this March Break, I have a feeling that the maple trees are just itching to ooze out some sugary goodness for you so go find a sugar bush and enjoy! Grade 5 students especially should be excited about this; next month, you will go to the Outdoor Education Centre for the first time and you will learn how to tap that sap yourselves!

Have a great holiday and we will return to your inbox on March 27th!

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School

Constantly Complimented Both Locally & Abroad

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Parents of students in Grades 8 to 11 may have already heard about some overseas HS trip opportunities in the next school year (one trip to Germany/Belgium/France, one to Nepal and another to Ghana) and the Grade 8s have already learned that the Class of 2014 year-end trip will be to Chicago.

Starting in a week, it will be the privilege of 9 staff members to take more than 60 of our HS students on three overseas trips (Cambodia, South Africa and China/Hong Kong). Even though I have been on many of these trips, I am always surprised when flight attendants, bus drivers and tour guides stop me to compliment me on the behaviour of our students. (I also still get a chuckle when travellers in the airport ask the teachers for directions to the Westjet counter…is it because we look knowledgeable or is it our navy, crested blazers and grey pants?)

I still remember the flight attendant who served our group back from Europe who told me that she had been away from Toronto for almost 2 weeks and ours was the very last flight. She told me that to be honest, when she saw our group of “private school kids” get on the plane, she said to herself that it was going to be a lonnnggg flight and she knew she would need to speak to the person in charge. She did, but it was to let me and Mr. Young know what a pleasure it was to deal with our teenagers and that we were so unlike a number of other schools (and she gave us names!) she had served over the past few years.

Probably because I have been here for so long, I sometimes forget how fortunate I am that we have such great kids here AND how so many people are not prepared to give compliments to teenagers. We will get them in South Africa just as we do at the Science Centre. In the same way that the Barrick Gold head office staff was impressed, the business people in Beijing will be. The story will be the same in Cambodia as it is at the Compass Food Bank; we graciously accept the compliments on behalf of the kids and say to ourselves how lucky we are to be working here.

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School

Speaking Of Communication…

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Parents will no doubt remember at some point in their educational careers asking this question of their teacher “When am I ever going to use this in my life?”. For me, I remember asking this when I couldn’t find the septa of my dissected earthworm during Grade 10 science, a class in which I found little motivation to learn. My decidedly uninspirational teacher did not appreciate the question, nor my witty remark that the only person who needs to find a septa was Queen Elizabeth. Like now, I had to explain to her that Queen Elizabeth has a sceptre and that she is British and her accent would make the word sceptre sound like septa (and now that I read this, it might not have been that funny back then, either).

What I do know is that the skills learned during the upcoming Speech Nights, the HS DECA competition and the Grade 7/8 Science Fairs cannot be questioned. Persons who cannot communicate effectively in both written and oral form will be restricted in their ability to become leaders in their chosen careers whether that be politics, business, law, engineering or even stay-at-home-parent. Even those who find making public presentations daunting will appreciate the experience in the long run. The movie “The King’s Speech” showed this; the King was terrified at the prospect of public speaking. He was a leader by birthright, of course, and did not achieve greatness because of his presentation skills but only after he gave his famous “we are at war” speech did he truly inspire a nation.

I doubt that Tiffany’s “All About Me” Grade 1 speech, Sachin and Steven’s Q and A about “Creating Voltage Using Fruits” with the Grade 7/8 science fair judges or Josephine and Aliya’s DECA presentation on “Buying and Merchandising” will ever inspire a nation, but I do know that they will leave our school with an ability to communicate that their peers will envy.

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College/TEAM School

Christina’s Two Cents

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If you are a student who is always handing assignments in at the last minute, take some solace in the knowledge that Mr. Petrosian routinely reminds me that my deadline to have this introduction is looming. Grandma Starkey, who reads our update every week, will no doubt remind me that I have not changed since high school in this regard. What is more amazing to me than actually thinking about something to write each week is the number of times when this introduction writes itself.

I was sitting at my desk 22 minutes ago wondering what topic would come to mind when I received a message from a former student who commented on a Facebook post in our alumni group about the importance of senior high school years and university. I think it speaks volumes.

Hi Mr. Starkey!!!! This is Christina from waayyyyyyy back when!! I hope you are doing well!! Thanks for accepting me to the Mentor/TEAM fb group. Mentor was the foundation of so many great things in my life so I wanted to give my two cents about the curriculum as well.

I attended Mentor from SK-Grade 10. The two greatest experiences I am always thinking about and thanking Mentor for (among many) in terms of academic success in Medical School (currently in 3rd year) is Mrs. Petrovic being so hard on us in grade 7 and Mr. Milkovich pushing us to the brink of our abilities in high school English. After I left Mentor, I attended a high school in Toronto for Grade 11 and 12 and all the hard work Mentor had put into me all those years almost went to waste. Grade 11 and 12 is when you are learning the actual curriculum that will pull you forward into undergrad and it is a CONTINUUM OF MATERIAL AND STUDY HABITS. These things go hand in hand and one is no more or less important than the other. How involved the teachers are in making sure that students develop GOOD STUDY HABITS and REALLY KNOW THE MATERIAL WELL and how much the work load is all the time so that they understand that a lotttttt of time needs to be put into every lecture of every course to get it down pat.

I was roommates with Rachel in 1st year university and my two years away from Mentor really showed. We were quite similar in Grade 7 in terms of academic performance, but by the end of high school, it was clear who had the better training based on how we did in 1st year. She aced every course and I squeaked by with 70s and 60s. I agree with Nick’s post that your 1st year has a domino effect on the rest of university and can make or break your ultimate goal. (My goal was medical school but it was NOT a Caribbean medical school!) OK, gotta run! ER consult! Cheerio!

Even though it makes me feel REALLY old (as I remember teaching all these students as early as their Grade 5 year), I love getting this kind of feedback

Enjoy the long weekend!

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School

Celebrating More Than Just Culture

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Next week, we will be holding our annual Celebration of Cultural Diversity. Every student from JK to Grade 12 will get the opportunity to travel around the world by travelling around the Main Campus gyms and viewing the various pavilions hosted by high school students. Many of the students have a direct connection to their pavilion (eg: it is their home country or that of their parents) but others just took it upon themselves to learn more about a part of the world that they have never visited.

While I wouldn’t trade my youth in small-town Ontario for anything, it was a pretty homogenous upbringing. In my high school of about 800 kids, there was one Chinese family and one Indian family. I don’t remember any in-class conversations where students talked about their belief in Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam. When I heard the word “culture”, I thought of yogurt (food first!) or people who listened to classical music.

This is why I am so grateful that I have my experience here at Mentor/TEAM and that my kids have also been raised with much more knowledge about the world around them than I was. The Celebration of Cultural Diversity will show how truly international our school is and in many ways, Mentor/TEAM is like Canada. Newcomers are attracted to us for a better (educational) life and the core value of respect allows everyone to be proud of their past while being part of our (present and) future.

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College/TEAM School