Guest piece- Why I Mentor
A guest piece by Paula Swenson of English Excellence, long term TEFL.net reviewer and all round star
“Mentoring, mysteriously, seems to be something of a hot-button topic. You know the type of thing that causes people to write flaming, emotion –laden replies to articles about it regardless of whether they are in favor or against. As someone who mentors and has been mentored, I’ m a bit puzzled by all the emotion. I’m strongly in favor of mentoring, but I don’t really get emotional about it. So in the spirit of personal research I’ve been reading up on mentoring and chatting about it with colleagues both actual and virtual. I’ve come to some conclusions which Alex has agreed to let me share here.
1) A lot of people don’t really know how to define mentoring
2) People who have been mentored are more likely to mentor others
3) Personalities are paramount
4) The benefits on both sides can be exponential
So what, exactly, is mentoring?
Mentoring is a relationship built on trust, and one of its primary goals is to make young people (or persons new to a field of endeavor) more confident in their abilities and talents. Traditionally mentoring involves a person with more experience and connections helping a newcomer to the field.
For EFL purposes it is also important to establish what mentoring is NOT. It is not teacher training. It is not answering desperate questions of ill-prepared new teachers about how to explain future perfect continuous. It is not giving away all of your valuable, hard-earned teaching secrets (although it is arguable that good ideas ought to be shared not hoarded- thank you Alex for all that you share with us). It is not spending tons of free time making someone else’s life easier and shortchanging yourself on breaks, lunches, etc. Mentoring is not for everyone.
Rather than focusing on a particular skill, task or goal, mentoring is a long-term, ongoing process. It is a more personal relationship than coaching or training, based in shared experience. As the newcomer grows, the mentoring relationship evolves. The mentor often passes on not only tangible knowledge, but also philosophy, advice and advantages gleaned from years in the field.
The mentor sometimes provides introductions to people or organizations to which a newcomer would not normally have access. Mentors generally provide guidance, not for personal gain, but out of a desire to help another individual realize his full potential.
While this last point is certainly important, I have discovered an interesting ‘secret’ about mentoring. It makes me a better teacher.
What’s in it for me?
I’m all for altruism, in theory, but I am human. As a result, if I am going to sustain an activity over a long period of time, there usually needs to be a benefit for me. What I’ve discovered is that mentoring unwittingly provides the opportunity for reflective practice. Margot Pearson of the Australian National University Centre for Educational Development and Academic Methods says that reflective practice in the teaching field “refers to the process of the educator studying his or her own teaching methods and determining what works best for the students. Reflective practice can help an individual to develop personally.”
When I discuss with a mentee the choices I have made, or would make, in a situation similar to theirs, I get the opportunity to reflect not only on what worked, but also on why it worked. I am handed the chance to examine what I do in a way I never do whilst in the classroom. Pearson goes on to say “Critical to such learning from experience through reflection is dialogue with others: experts, experienced and inexperienced colleagues, students, and academics in different disciplines. It is in conversation with others that ideas are challenged, new approaches and perspectives are encountered, and notions of what is possible and what is ‘good practice’ are developed and shared.”
In my experience in seven schools in four countries, this sort of conversation is rare in the average EFL staff room. This is part of why we show up to read Alex and others blogging about what we do. We want to talk about it, we know deep down that if we stay in this profession we need to connect or risk becoming the bad example muttering in the corner.
Mentoring is also good for my teaching ego. I get to brag about my successes and laugh at my disasters, and I am reminded, by the disconnect between how wonderful a mentee thinks I am and reality, not to take myself TOO seriously. Mentoring helps me keep my balance.
Giving Really is Good for the Soul
Sharing what I know is part of why I teach, and mentoring is a different way of sharing. I get a similar satisfaction from watching a student “get it” and hearing a mentee say, “I tried what we talked about and my class went really, really well!” Seeing someone go from stressed-out to confident with my help is very rewarding for me. I’ve also helped more than one person realize that teaching was really not their profession, and that’s rewarding in its own way.
Paying It Back
I have been fortunate. More than once in my life (in several different careers) I have had wonderful mentors. Without those people I could never have accomplished the things I have done. The help and advice I received, whether formally organized or not, was invaluable. I want to be there for others now in the same way those people were there for me.
Personalities Matter
They matter a lot. Real mentoring is a relationship, if there is friction between mentor and mentee, nothing good will come of it. The best mentoring relationships are built on mutual respect. The mentee respects your work and the way you do it, and you, as the mentor, see a potentially great teacher inside this bundle of educated insecurity. If either one of you thinks the other is a waste of space no mentoring can occur; likewise if you just don’t connect (blame it on psychology or star signs) you really can’t develop a mentoring relationship. This is why smart head teachers don’t assign mentors randomly. It is also why you should feel free to say no to a mentoring request if it is not a good fit.
Exponential Benefits
For the mentees, benefits are obvious; they get to ask a lot of questions, gain wisdom, maybe make fewer mistakes, and learn that they are not the only ones in the universe who ever had this problem, whatever it is.
For the mentor the benefits seem to vary, but those I spoke to agreed on a few key pluses: the chance to discuss why they do what they do in the classroom, the delight of rediscovering some activity or teaching technique they used to use but drifted away from, and the positive feelings of helping someone improve in a tangible way. Personally I’d add that it energizes me- it keeps me from becoming complacent and lazy. After a session in which I advocate mixing it up and making it real for the students, it is pretty damn difficult to head into the classroom and do the ‘same old routine’. That, along with seeing a new teacher really come into his or her own, is what keeps me mentoring.”
Thanks Paula!
If you want to get involved in mentoring or hear what others have to say about it, there’s a dedicated TEFL.net forum on mentoring. There’s also one more TEFLtastic guest blog post on the topic:
Tags: guest writers
January 24th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
I so much enjoyed this piece.
I have had great experiences with some wonderful teachers who worked for me and I’ve also had bad experiences with mentoring when working as an equal level colleague – so to be honest, it does pivot a bit on perceived “position”!!!
Also, it takes a very special kind of teacher who will even allow themselves to be mentored – i.e. willing to listen to advice (and I mean listen) rather than be told off :-)
So many teachers don’t actually want to be told about a new activity or a different approach to what they’re doing: they simply want to be told how great they are… can be a wee bit tiring that!!
But like you, Paula, when it works, it’s payment enough!
Karenne
January 29th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
A lot of time, resources and commitment are required, which is why mentoring is less seen than it should be. A great post, thank you.
March 14th, 2010 at 5:18 am
Lovely article paula. I’m biased. i’m one of those people who has gone through life, plodding through courses, study, practicing, getting a lot of empirical experience, and never asking for free help (or paid help either) from anyone. By and large, I didn’t do to badly; I’ve had two distictly different careers and got to the top of both of them. The main career was teacher training – I managed to avoid becoming a permanent backpacking TEFler. As you say, it is not spending tons of free time making someone else’s life easier and shortchanging yourself, and if I were to be a mentor I would need some convincing that my time would not be wasted.