Creating a School Culture that Supports Mentoring

Fostering Mentor/Mentee Relationships

In the chapter, 'New Visions for Mentoring New Teachers', Achinstein & Athanases (2006) "challenge the 'survival' focus of much of teacher induction... [arguing that] mentoring must move beyond emotional support and brief technical advice to become truly educative" (p. 9).

It is imperative to revisit the school culture to look at how mentoring relationships can be fostered as a natural part of growth, collegiality and renewal.

MacIntyre & Hagger note that the two factors that can limit any potential benefits to mentoring are:

1. the quality of the match between the mentor and mentee;
2. limited time.
   McIntyre, D. & Hagger, H. (1996). Mentors in schools: Developing the profession of teaching.

Further research indicated that these two factors could be ameliorated with appropriate school-wide support and planning. Viewing mentoring as part of a continued process of professional development of staff reflects a belief that everybody needs guidance and support. School principals and central office leaders need to think about how schools are organized to support such a culture.

The promise of sustainable success in education lies not in training and developing a tiny elite, but in creating entire cultures of distributed leadership throughout school community. Hargreaves, A. (2001). Learning to change. Teaching beyond subjects and standards .

Leadership:  With this in mind, think about your own workplace culture. How is leadership viewed, embodied and enacted? What are the implications of the culture to your daily practice?

Lee Shulman, a renowned educator and president of the Carnegie Foundation, views the principal as ‘lead teacher’ with the added ability to manage, organize, lead and develop the capabilities of other teachers. This type of leadership requires a certain humility and ability to reconceptualize distributed practice as it extends across various social and situational contexts in the school setting.  According to Harris and Lambert (2003), leadership cannot be imposed or assumed. Rather, they argue, it must be

…bestowed, denoted willfully by those who are to be led. We accept leadership. We allow ourselves to be led… It is a reciprocal and dynamic relationship.

Similarly, expansion of leadership is invitational and is about providing opportunity, space, support, capacity and growth. To accomplish this, schools/institutions need to develop a repertoire of continuous learning interactions. How does this notion of leadership support capacity building?

Synergy:  Mullen, Kochan & Funk, (1999), argue that where there is synergy, “the result exceeds the efforts of all individual players who energize and inspire each other as the basis for new approaches to learning”.

To learn more about the status of ‘synergy’ in your workplace, consider this Synergy Audit.

If we are serious about building and sustaining workplace cultures that support mentoring relationships, then we must attend to professional community discourse and trust. Too often, mission statements offer hollow sentiments about honouring students, teachers and a commitment to learning, yet are situated in leadership climates that generate directives rather than collaboration.

Think about how the following strategies might cultivate a culture that supports mentoring relationships.

• Having staff share their strengths and special abilities/interests that could support school-wide goals
• Soliciting profiles from all teachers to be added to a potential mentoring database rather than
  approaching a select few year after year
• Recognizing and valuing collaboration and building opportunities into the timetable
• Recognizing and supporting the notion that a rich professional growth environment for teachers leads
  to an improved learning environment for the students

Conditions for Mentoring: Take another look around your workplace. Using Fibkin’s (2002) guidelines, assess the climate of collegiality within which you work. When you are finished, think about how this process can help you begin to target areas for building the desired climate.

Portner (2001) suggests:

What are the barriers to mentoring?

Potential barriers to mentoring have been identified as a perceived lack of time, poor personal relationships, an emphasis on status and hierarchical control and limited numbers of mentors available to work with. (McIntyre & Hagger, 1996).

Consider Danielle's experience:

Danielle I am a first-year teacher who was assigned a mentor. I had been an Educational Assistant in the school system for ten years, and I knew and liked this person very much. However, I saw another side of her when she was my mentor. She thought that the way that she did things was the 'right' way, and that I needed to change what I was doing and adopt her methods. My years of experience were in a Special Education setting, and I had been very thoughtful about what I was doing in order to meet the needs of my students, but she continually critiqued those modifications especially. What bothered me more than anything else, was that she didn't seem to want to give me any credit for knowing anything, or bringing anything to the relationship. Every time I tried to have a discussion about alternative ways of doing things, she would retort 'Been there, done that, and trust me, this is better'. What do I do with this?

It appears as though Danielle’s mentor is operating in a culture where hierarchical status reigns. However, she is likely operating from either expectations that are in place, or a complete lack of expectation – in which case people revert to, ‘what they know’. How might these barriers be overcome? In what ways can a teacher mentor demonstrate an understanding that the practice of teaching continues to evolve and change with experience?

Shulman & Sato (2006) ask, "Can you effectively mentor someone whose teaching methods and philosophy differ from your own?" (p. 83). Their exploration of the issues highlights the role that our biases may play when we are positioned to offer feedback on another's teaching. If we acknowledge and address our own biases, the process may be instructive on multiple levels, the personal and the professional, as well as the mentor and mentee learning that occurs as a result of the interaction between the two. 

Learning to recognize and address our own bias, adopt a non-judgmental stance and provide constructive feedback are critical to creating and sustaining a healthy mentor/mentee relationship.

Relationship Building

Relationships cannot be forced. Planning for necessary conditions to foster the ongoing formation, development and maintenance of relationships needs to be considered to promote a culture where successful mentoring thrives. Such conditions include:

• Trusting environment;
• Understanding and respect for others' experiences;
• Time for purposeful collaboration, conversation;
• Shared work;
• Shared responsibility.

Relationship building is much more likely to occur in a culture of inquiry. When professionals enact the habits of a ‘reflective practitioner’, they are better positioned to foster those practices in others.

Relationship building is also necessary between schools and universities. As Graham, Hudson-Ross & McWhorter and others have noted, “the pull between school and university knowledge creates an awkward space for collaboration” (1999, p. 6). Recognizing the importance and value that each setting offers serves to create a more collaborative professional environment into which the student can move.

Consider the following vignette.

Darren's Story Like many teachers in their pre-service year, Darren returned to the Faculty of Education feeling overwhelmed with what he was expected to know and be able to do. Darren recounted how his Associate Teacher had required that he, ‘look after a novel study’, during his three-week Grade 8 practicum. This request left Darren feeling that any discussions about language and literacy theory were futile. He claimed that what would have been helpful to prepare him for the practicum and for evaluation by his Associate Teacher were novel study packages – lists of questions and/or activities that would ‘go with’ each novel. Darren, it seemed, was looking for the seductive sense of security a package can offer to teachers. Our first response to Darren was recognition and understanding. We were well aware of feeling ill-equipped to face the daily responsibilities of teaching, and yet we understood that the packages were often not commensurate with the ideals of balanced literacy. Our pedagogical strategy was to begin by affirming Darren’s “fear of theory” (Simon, 1992), which was shared by the rest of the class, then to reconnect the class with their experiences as learners, and finally to open up the discussion to include multiple perspectives. We asked Darren and his peers to share their recollections of how novel studies were taught when they were in grade eight. Many recounted how dissatisfied they were when literacy was distilled into reading and answering questions. However, under pressure to ‘perform’, Darren felt that a list of questions was at least something. He equated being prepared to teach with having the ‘what’ to teach (the novel) and the ‘how’ to teach (the questions). When we were able to help him understand how the novel and the questions were not educative in and of themselves, he was able to reconceptualize a novel study in a way that assisted students to meaningfully engage with text. adapted from Heydon, R., Hibbert, K. & Iannacci, L. (2004/2005). Strategies to support balanced literacy perspectives in pre- and inservice teacher education. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 48(4), 312-319.

Culture of Enquiry

In a culture of inquiry, teachers actively search for discrepancies between their beliefs and practices (Villaume, 2000). To participate in a culture of inquiry, suggests that teachers become accustomed to asking themselves relevant questions about their practice. For example,

• How will I define myself as a teacher?
• What does it mean to be a Professional?
• How does what we do focus on student learning vs. teacher performance?
• How do I ensure ongoing professional learning?
• What strategies do I have for coping with competing philosophies?
• In what ways do I model that I am thinking deeply about my practice?
• How do my actions foster partnerships and collegiality in my profession?

One way to support a culture of inquiry is to provide opportunities for teachers to come together regularly for practice-centered conversations. Such conversations are fostered when school timetables are organized in a way that allows common divisional prep-time. Such practices provide unstructured professional mentoring by engaging teachers in regular discussions about their profession. In most settings, the group will represent a diverse range of skills and abilities and can learn from each other’s strengths. It also makes it convenient to bring in external staff, guests or visitors to provide small group-focused support.

Understanding Knowledge and Pedagogy May be Culturally Conditioned

When teachers collaborate in a culture of inquiry, it is important to recognize that in any group, members will bring different perspectives, background experiences and underlying assumptions to bear. Such differences can be even more pronounced in cross-cultural discussions. According to Boreen and Niday (2003), “difference in assumptions is often the heart of cross-cultural mentoring difficulties. They suggest that one of the best ways to handle these differences is to explore them up-front, before they are linked to any type of performance evaluation. For example, when working with someone whose culture is unfamiliar to you, begin by seeking information.

I'm afraid I don't have any experience with Navajo or Hispanic cultures, but I really want to learn. Would you please give me any suggestions that you think might help me? And please mention it if you see me inadvertently do or say anything that is culturally inappropriate.

adapted from Boreen & Niday, (2003). Mentoring across boundaries: Helping beginning teachers succeed in challenging situations.

Viewing these interactions as a site for new learning requires a willingness to observe and discuss pedagogical choices with a desire to understand how they may have been culturally influenced.

Many of the textbooks and resource materials developed in response to a demand for culturally-relevant and inclusive resources create rich sites for new learning. Examine the materials for bias, perspectives, and accuracy and think about how you might critique them, to come to a deeper understanding of cultural issues.

The Role of the Teacher Mentor

The role of the teacher mentor can be both simple and complex. The following list establishes some of the skills and characteristics identified as key to the role.

• Experience, skill, repertoire of styles and strategies
• Interpersonal and communication skills
• Clear goal setting provides opportunities for co-planning
• Interest/desire
• Listening, i.e., for existing understanding, perceptions
• Integrity
• Model problem solving
• Co-learner
• Support/encouragement
• Development in:
  • Competence;
  • Self-confidence;
  • Self-direction;
  • Professionalism;
  • Ability to provide constructive criticism;
  • Support for the development of habits of inquiry and judgment (Feiman-Nemser & Parker, 1992);
  • Pre and post observation/lesson coaching .

Just as each mentor will bring their own set of ideas, experiences and goals to the relationship, each mentee will also have some similar and some very different needs. Their knowledge and experience with teaching will vary, and you will need to assess this prior knowledge and experience in order to mentor effectively. As a mentor, it is important to remember that your mentee will learn not only from your explicitly stated goals, strategies and content, but also from the implicit assumptions you bring to discussions. As you think about how to help your mentee adapt to the culture, norms and practices of teaching, you might want to also revisit and reconsider and challenge your own assumptions, beliefs and practices in the process.

In Mentoring for Quality Improvement, (2004), Ryan & Hornbeck examine the case of ‘Carolyn’, a teacher struggling to mentor a new teacher.

Carolyn’s struggle to overcome the feeling of being judged is common. The following list may help guide your assessment of where to begin with your mentee. You may choose to ask your mentee to comment on how they feel that they have managed these areas to date, and then choose to focus on one area at a time on which to comment, so that they don’t feel like everything they do has to be ‘judged’.

• Curriculum: How familiar is your mentee with the specific content to be taught in a course?
• Instruction: What repertoire of strategies and methods does your mentee currently possess?
• Lesson Planning: How much experience does your mentee have with mapping out activities, developing a
  sequence, using resources, instructional strategies and student assessment aspects of a lesson?
• Student Assessment: How well can the mentee determine the extent to which students understand and apply
  the lesson’s content?
• Classroom Management: Is your mentee able to create a safe and orderly place in which to learn?
• School Policy: How familiar is the mentee with school procedures and routines?
• Parent and Community Involvement: What is the nature of involvement that the mentee has experienced to
  date?
• Emotions: How has your mentee coped with the stresses experienced in the profession to date?
  Portner, H. (1998). Mentoring New Teachers.

The Role of the Mentee

The mentee has an important and active role to play for the relationship to be effective. Mentee involvement includes:

• Preparing for working with a mentor;
• Communicating and expectations;
• Feedback and questions;
• Respecting time and experience;
• Relating learning to other experience, research and making determinations for your own practice;
• Ability to accept constructive criticism.

Consider the following case:

The Unwilling and Unable Mentee It is the beginning of a school year, and you are mentoring James, a first-year teacher. James is a bright young man who knows his subject matter, but he is clearly shy. You ask to observe one of his classes. He reluctantly agrees. During your visit to his classroom, it becomes quickly evident that James is having difficulty with classroom management. His attempts at discipline are met with little or no success. After class, James says to you, “Did you see Lisa throw that paper clip?” You nod. His gaze shifts toward the floor. “I wish the other students hadn’t made such a big deal about it”. You cue in to how James is feeling about the situation. You ask if he is feeling as though the students are being too disruptive. He agrees, and laments that their behaviour is interfering with his teaching. Your assessment of James’ classroom management skills indicates that he needs help on two levels. He needs the skills to solve the problem, and the willingness and confidence to tackle it. What do you do? adapted from Portner, H. 1998. Training mentors is not enough: Everything else schools need to do.

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