Things My Students Taught Me: The Boundaries of Advice

“My girlfriend is pregnant,” he said.? This was clearly not going to be an ordinary conversation.? “We know we’re not ready to be parents; we’re both too young, too broke, and still in school.? But we’re also both religious, and we don’t think an abortion is an easy decision to make.? My girlfriend said she’ll go along with whatever I want to do.? What do you think I should do?”? The first thing that came to mind is that it’s one thing for someone to like my Consumer Behavior class, or even think highly of me, but asking my opinion on this—a decision with major implications—showed a level of trust I couldn’t have possibly earned in the course of a semester.? Yet there we were, with the ball in my court, and him fidgeting in his chair waiting for my advice.

He wasn’t going to get the advice he came for, because I wasn’t going to give it to him—not to him, not to a close friend, and not to anyone else.? There are some decisions that people have to make on their own, and if he trusted me enough to ask me such a question, maybe he’d trust me enough to do exactly what I'd suggest.? But I couldn’t possibly put myself in his shoes, even if they'd been size 11.5.? There’s no way I was going to decide whether he—or rather they—should have a child.? Yet I wasn’t going to tell him I couldn’t help, because he’d come to me for a reason.?

I started by telling him that this was a decision he shouldn’t make alone: Maybe, by deferring to him, his girlfriend was trying to be supportive, or maybe the decision was overwhelming for her—but regardless, this was something they had to decide together. ?It was not his place to tell her what to do, any more than it was mine to tell him what to do.? I pointed out that absolutely every decision in life, large of small, has both pros and cons; there simply isn’t one that only has one or the other.? Sometimes the pros or the cons are absolutely overwhelming, making the choice an easy one, and sometimes things are more complicated.? I explained that the quantity of pros and cons wasn’t important, because their weights—their relative importance—varied.? First one has to identify all the alternative courses of action, and then consider the pros and cons of each in light of the relevant criteria. ?I walked him through how to approach the decision as thoughtfully and as thoroughly as I could.? He was grateful for the help, and was on his way.

I never found out what they decided to do, but I never regretted not expressing my personal opinion on what that choice should have been.? I’ve run across people since then who thought I handled this very well, and others who thought it was outrageous that I didn’t encourage my student to either go through the pregnancy or terminate it.? I, too, was very young then, and although I’ve always had opinions on just about everything (opinions too strong for my own good sometimes), I’m really glad I had the good sense to offer help without actually offering an opinion.? It was an early lesson about the responsibility of a teacher and mentor: Providing support and encouragement are par for the course.? Students and mentees will place a lot of trust in you, much more than you’ve earned sometimes, and you have to rise up to the challenge.?

Being a mentor is a privilege, and it comes with great responsibility.? What you say—and how you say it—doesn’t just affect a student’s class performance or job prospects; it can affect their self-confidence, their perseverance, their ambition, the kindness they show to strangers, their eagerness to learn, to take chances; it can affect their life.? You have to be supportive, engaged, but thoughtful—and that doesn’t just apply to advice you give specifically to students; it applies to any advice you give as a mentor, as a parent, or as a friend. ?

Homines dum docent discunt.?