Column:

College students can be role models

By Jacob Houska

Published Nov. 6, 2008

A stretch of the imagination is no longer required to think about elementary school children using and selling narcotics, and it is not uncommon for sixth graders to get drunk.

I'm not old or smart enough to know if this is a completely new thing, but at the same time I'm not dumb enough to think it isn't a startling problem.

It might sound terrible, but these kids really don't know better. Their morals are formed based on what they see and what they hear, and if they see a parent doing drugs and they never hear they shouldn't, there's a pretty good chance you're looking at future customers of drug dealers everywhere.

That's where programs like Big Brothers Big Sisters come into play. Their plan is to take young adults with a moral background and have them mentor young children who might not have all the advantages they need in life. It sounds simple enough, but its applications are more effective than they will probably ever know.

Some children have a completely skewed idea of what is normal or what is acceptable. When their dysfunctional environment accounts for an overwhelming majority of their worldview, it becomes their idea of normal. But when a level-headed college kid hangs out with the troubled child for as little as an hour a week, they at least get a glimpse of what a healthy, normal lifestyle looks like.

"Hundreds of kids hope to be paired with big brothers and sisters each year," Dave Dietrich, who has worked at the local chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters, said in a previous Maneater article. "But only half of the children get big brothers and sisters."

Which brings me to my next point. The fact that you're reading this article means you are probably in college and you can probably read. This, in turn, means you're probably smart enough to be able to show an underprivileged child what it's like to make it to college. It might sound silly, but for a lot of these kids, making it to college is something they have already ruled out.

Some students, like Joe Beck who has had a little brother through the program for almost a semester now, already know how rewarding it is to be part of this program.

"I just like helping out and knowing that I'm spending my free time doing something to help others," Beck said. "Instead of playing Super Smash Brothers and watching Gossip Girl I'm helping underprivileged children."

And other students should follow suit.

College might be busy, but an hour a week isn't that much to ask, especially when the effect you have on the kid might literally save their life. When studies have shown that taking a little brother or little sister can make that child 46 percent less likely to start doing illegal drugs, obviously it is time well spent.

For each and every lucky child in this world, there is an equally unlucky child somewhere else. It's not fun to think about, but it's the truth. And the truth, however ugly it might be, needs to be recognized.