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6. Mentoring As a Process for Engaging in Professional Learning

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6. Mentoring As a Process for Engaging in Professional Learning DEBORAH CORRIGAN 6. MENTORING AS A PROCESS FOR ENGAGING IN PROFESSIONAL LEARNING INTRODUCTION Originally in Greek mythology, Mentor was a loyal friend and adviser to Odysseus, King of Ithaca. Mentor helped raise Odysseus' son, Telemachus, while Odysseus was away fighting the Trojan War. Mentor became Telemachus' teacher, coach, counsellor and protector, building a relationship based on affection and trust. While the origins of mentoring point to the fact that this idea is not new, it does appear that in more recent times mentoring has been used as a mechanism for developing successful relationships that build the professional wisdom of all those involved. In this chapter the workplace context used to describe mentoring relationships will be schools, however, the context could be any organization. Within the context of schools, two mentoring programs that are designed to assist professionals beginning a new career role will be discussed to highlight some of the strengths and weakness of such programs for their professional learning. This chapter will also make some brief evaluative comments on these programs based on data collected from participants. However, it is important to first explore the current ideas of mentoring, particularly as a process that engages people in professional relationships. DEFINITIONS OF MENTORING Modem day definitions of mentoring reflect much of the teacher, coach, counsellor and protector roles traditionally associated with the idea of mentoring, but also include descriptors such as parent figure, supporter, trouble-shooter, scaffolder, guide, role model, sponsor, trainer, developer of talent and door opener. A great deal of the literature and conversations around mentoring actually focus on what mentoring is not! It appears that this is a far easier task than to define what is meant by mentoring. There have been attempts to define mentoring such as those made by Asburn et al. (1987) who describe mentoring as " ... the establishment of a personal relationship for the purpose of professional instruction and guidance" (p. 2) or Crosby's (1999) definition of mentoring as a trusted and experienced supervisor or advisor who by mutual consent takes an active interest in the development and education of a younger, less experienced individual" (p. 13). However it is difficult to define mentoring as it is about the relationship between a mentor and a A. Berry, A. Clemans and A. Kostogri= (Eds.), Dimensions ofProfessional Learning: Professionalism, Practice and Identity, 89-103. © 2007 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved. DEBBIE CORRIGAN mentoree. In fact there may be some dangers in defining mentoring because as Wildman et al. (1992) suggest ... mentoring involves highly personal interactions, conducted under different circumstances in different schools, [but] the roles of mentoring cannot be rigidly specified. Therefore, it is a mistake to develop any external definition or conception of mentoring and impose it by means of political pressure or high-powered staff development activity. (p. 212) Mentoring relationships are complex and involve not only the personalities of the mentor and mentoree, but also the interpersonal or psychosocial development, career and/or educational development, and socialization (Field, 1994, p. 65) of participants with different experience, expertise and orientations. More commonly mentoring is described as a process with models proposed for how the mentoring process occurs. These models are numerous (as would be expected) as no two relationships are identical due to the individuals involved in the mentoring process. Some models of mentoring focus on how mentors approach the mentoring task. Such models include comprehensive lists of the different mentoring roles (for example, Abell et al., 1995), while others have developed this notion further and examined the particular orientations of individual mentors. For example, Saunders, Pettinger and Tomlinson (1995) suggested a loose typology of four orientations of teacher mentors: 1. Hands-off facilitator - where the mentor emphasizes discussion with the mentoree rather than team/shared teaching. This orientation is dependent on the view of mentorees as autonomous teachers developing their own potential. 2. Progressively collaborative - where the mentor works alongside the mentoree, building confidence and skills and offering advice. 3. Professional friend- where the mentor regards the mentoree as a member of the organization (school) and values the importance of the mentoree's classroom performance above such things as challenging or praising the mentoree. 4. Classical - where the mentor takes on a role of counsellor, listening to problems and giving feedback. There is an acknowledgement in Saunders et al. (1995) that mentors have their own perspectives of what mentoring is and they bring these to the role. Mertz (2004) has proposed a conceptual frame for "defining and distinguishing mentoring from related supportive relationships" (p. 543), and describes the mentor as role model, peer support and sponsor (see Figure 6.1). The conceptual model she proposes is a work in progress and begins to unravel the confusion that exists around mentoring. It is also aimed to facilitate dialogue around the ideas of mentoring that have been limited in the past through a lack of shared understanding of the distinction between mentoring and other supportive relationships. While she proposes what appears to be a hierarchical model, I propose that both mentors and mentorees find themselves moving between different points and dimensions of supportive relationships, depending on the perceived need at the time. So while the model presented in Figure 6.1 begins to represent the complexity of mentoring 90 .
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