\u02c8ment\u00f4rSHip,\u02c8ment\u0259rSHip\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n
noun<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n noun: mentorship<\/strong>; plural noun: mentorships<\/strong>;\nnoun: mentor-ship<\/strong>; plural noun: mentor-ships<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A true mentor is one who nurtures\nyour strengths while acknowledging and healing your weaknesses. They remind you\nof your potential and guide you to live up to your best self. The key word is guidance<\/em>, which is the component that\nseems to be missing in the current wave of mentoring and coaching teachers\nbeing hired in public schools.<\/em> It is\nyet one more example about how corporatism in its most archaic Dickensian sense\nhas infiltrated education. The big data corporate model which has ripped the\nheart and soul out of public schools is precisely why they are falling apart.\nAdministrators emerge from Universities ill prepared for true leadership, with\nan adversarial and punitive drive, not unlike the factory managers or the\nplantation overseers who were charged with increasing production at any cost.\nAnd who, you might ask, is the driver of that bus? Certainly not the doe-eyed\nteachers coming into the field intent on making a difference in children\u2019s\nlives. And, I must say, the Principals and administrators I have worked with\nhad the best of intentions. They did not\npursue a higher degree out of a distain for teaching and learning. They\ngenerally care deeply about education and young people. But something certainly is amiss. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We\nknow that new teachers should not be thrown into a classroom without a mentor\nor at least someone to coach them through that fly-by-the-seat-of- your pants\nfirst year. Yet we take Principals fresh\nfrom their sixth-year programs and throw them into the fire without so much as\na hose. We all<\/em> need mentors, but if\nadministrators have been brainwashed by bureaucrats that teachers are the\nproblem, they stand little chance of initiating meaningful change. Gone are the\ndays when the Principal was respected and perhaps even revered by teacher. During\nsimpler times and a less contentious polity, one would have earned one\u2019s\nstripes as a Principal with at least five years of classroom experience. Teachers\nfind it easier to trust someone\u2019s judgement if they\u2019ve been in the trenches\nwith you. True mentorship is a relationship of trust and partnership. Any\nwisdom imparted by a mentor should be a respectable nudge toward your own\nexcellence. Onward and upward. All for one and one for all. Unfortunately, the\ncurrent model appears to be more of a \u201cgotcha trap\u201d and teachers are coming out\nof the ring thoroughly beaten down.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n One old-school mentor prototype is the\nmuch-admired former principal of the elementary school in my town. He served at\nleast thirty-five years ago, yet I still run into retired teachers who remember\nhim fondly. He had long passed by the time I went to work there, but there were\nstill colleagues who looked back on those years as the \u201cHappy Days\u201d of their\ncareer. They longed for that kind of a\nleader. He could walk into a classroom and know within five minutes what kind\nof a teacher he was dealing with. A keen observer of behavior in children and\nadults, he was able to evaluate the learning by the engagement of the students\nand a conversation in the bus line. And if a child was allowed to wander around\nthe room during a lesson, points were not taken away, but added to the teacher\u2019s\nportfolio. After all, it was about the child\u2019s learning needs, not the data. He\ndidn\u2019t micro-manage their classrooms. He didn\u2019t monitor test scores \u2013 because,\nwell, there weren\u2019t any tests back then. Instead, he banked on familiarity and diversity,\nknowing that every teacher and every child had different learning styles and\nneeds. When you respect the talents and skills of your staff, and nurture their\nstrengths, you create a safe culture of teaching and learning. Rather than the\ncookie-cutter data driven approach, teachers were encouraged to do it their\nway. As long as the outcome was the same, it was O.K. to take different paths\nto get there.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Before\nhigh-stakes testing and the data driven models that help to line those deep corporate\npockets, schools used to be about the kids. And old-school principals, knew\nthat the students, their families, the culture of their small, rural or large inner-city\nschool mattered. There was no one-size-fits-all<\/em> homogeneity. Schools\nvaried as much as their neighborhoods. Although it was by no means perfect, I\ncan guarantee that teachers and most of their students were a much happier lot\nthan they are now. Rather than achieving excellence, corporatism has provided a\nlong slide toward mediocrity.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s\ntrue that the success of public education may have been a bit too\nteacher-centered in the past. From Hallmark to Hollywood, we are reminded of\nthose teachers who made a difference in some child\u2019s life. My mother often\nrecalled Miss Swan, who taught in the one-room schoolhouse she attended in New\nHampshire in the 1930\u2019s. Miss Swan was apparently an amazing teacher, and\neveryone got A\u2019s and excelled in her school. If they worked hard, she would\ntake them skating on the pond out back, or make hot cocoa. She had a long neck,\njust like a swan, and all the boys were in love with her. Having that much\npower over one\u2019s curriculum, schedule, and ability to motivate students is\nunheard of these days. Yet the general public seems to believe that teacher\u2019s\nreign like autocrats in their classrooms. I can\u2019t tell you how often I had to\nfend off irate parents who were upset by a myriad of policies over which I had no\ncontrol. Miss Swan may have called the shots in her classroom, but even back\nthen, she must have had to answer to someone, either a District Principal,\nSuperintendent, or board of education. Unfortunately, the school reform movement\nhas also put too much focus on the teacher and spun a campaign of\nmis-information that public schools lack accountability and are riddled with\ndead-wood teachers who needed to be culled like weeds.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The\ntsunami wave of accountability was manufactured by the neo-conservative movement\nwhich promoted school choice during the Reagan presidency. Initially prompted\nby conservative Christians who wanted vouchers to send their children to\nprivate, Christian schools, the movement morphed into privatization. In the\nfashion of Betsy DeVos, corporations began to get their fingers deeply sunk in\nthe public-school pie. Unwieldly data-driven programs and high-stakes testing\nquickly took a toll on public schools, especially poor urban and rural districts.\nHaving already set students and teachers up for failure, while undermining\npublic education, corporations were more than willing to offer costly solutions\nsuch as charter schools. The school choice movement finally got their champion\nin Betsy DeVos and her cadre of corporations who were more than willing to steal\ntax dollars away from public schools. The result has been disastrous for\nstudents as education is no longer the great equalizer, but a reversion of the\ngreat segregator. The achievement gap between rich and poor has widened, and\nracial segregation has reached pre-Jim Crow era levels.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/em><\/strong>You might be wondering what this has\nto do with an essay about mentoring. Fear not, as I haven\u2019t strayed far off the\npath. After the corporate and data-driven model thoroughly dismantled the\npedagogical wisdom and skills of America\u2019s best public-school teachers, the\nnext scam was to develop yet another industry to fix the mess they created. In\nthe guise of \u201cmentoring\u201d, schools are now hiring Teacher Coaches<\/em>, who have the unfortunate task of trying to guide\nteachers through their curriculum, data and evaluations. Like many of the\nadministrators who have come out of the Universities in the last ten years, the\n\u201ccoaches\u201d seem to have been told that public schools are not working because\nthe teachers are inept or not working hard enough. Of course, this is a lie.\nTeachers are more highly trained and hard-working than any profession I can\nthink of outside the medical field. But what better way to divide and conquer\nthan to add yet one-more stress factor into the mix. Although my own experience with teaching\ncoaches was generally positive, the model doesn\u2019t appear to be working. Teaching\ncoaches are too often hired to monitor\nand supervise staff. They have become the adversarial overseers of a corrupt\nand failing system. Unfortunately, those who have pumped billions of dollars\ninto the corruption of public schools, while robbing them of their funding, would\nrather scapegoat teachers than admit defeat.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\nwas fortunate in my teaching career to have had two mentors who pushed me\nforward. The first was Dr. Ralph Yulo, who was the liaison between the local\nteaching university and the small environmental education program where I\nworked. Each week, he would bring a group of student teachers out to the\nprogram for their outdoor education practicum. I would teach them the lessons\nthey would be teaching during the field trips. At the end of each day, and\nespecially on Friday, we would debrief about how the day or the week went.\nRalph would come out on Friday\u2019s and sit on the floor in a circle with us while\nI led the budding teachers in a discussion. Ralph saw something in me that I\ndidn\u2019t even know existed. He saw a Teacher (with a capital T). Never in a\nmillion years would I have seen myself working in a school. I was a consummate\noutsider and hated school my whole life. I didn\u2019t like being boxed in, which is\nwhy I loved teaching outdoors. But Ralph saw that little stone glimmering\nbeneath the surface, and with a little excavation managed to convince me to\nfinish my education and get a teaching degree. He never said harsh words, but\ngently pointed out my mistakes as one would do with an apprentice. Through\nencouragement rather than critique, he helped me to hone my skills and sail\ntoward excellence. I never dreamed of greatness, because \u2013 well, poor kids\nrarely get mentors. We generally just get yelled at.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In graduate school, I found another\nmentor in my advisor, Dr. Sally Reis. Again, she didn\u2019t focus on my weaknesses\n(I was, after all fairly under-educated even though I was working on a master\u2019s\ndegree). She recognized and encouraged me to use my gifts and talents. When she\nlabeled me \u201ccreative productive\u201d, I had a Sally Field moment of someone finally\nrecognizing me. That little label gave me permission to continue my creative\npath, even while teaching, and to use my creativity in the classroom. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t envy teachers just starting\nout in their careers. They are entering a profession which has been brutalized.\nPublic schools are hardly the beacon of equalizing hope these days. New\nteachers will find themselves in toxic school climates where their colleagues\nare mere ghosts of who they once were and what they could have been. The workload and expectations border on abuse,\nand many of the younger people who arrive bright-eyed and ever-so hopeful that\nthey can make a difference, will turn away, tail-between-the legs within the\nfirst year. They won\u2019t know the joys of getting to know their students beyond\ndata points or being able to stray from the curriculum because a student\u2019s mom died,\nand the class wanted to write poetry that would help them all grieve. They won\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to drop\neverything for a teachable moment, or to whip out a guitar and sing a song that\nconnects those creative learners to the history lesson. Nor will they have the\nadvantage of being mentored by administrators and others in the profession who\ncan share a little wisdom without tearing them apart. Mentoring is oh-so-much\nmore than cracking the whip in the name of fidelity<\/em>.\n It is about modeling, taking someone\nunder your angel wings to nurture their talents and skills, and nudging them\nforward. It\u2019s about cultivating a culture of teaching and learning where it is\nO.K. to make mistakes and to learn from them. Mentorship and coaching are\npretty-much nonexistent in most schools. Instead, it has become yet another\nexample of corporate management gone bad.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u02c8ment\u00f4rSHip,\u02c8ment\u0259rSHip\/ noun noun: mentorship; plural noun: mentorships; noun: mentor-ship; plural noun: mentor-ships the guidance provided by a mentor, especially an experienced person in a company or educational institution. A true mentor is one who nurtures your strengths while acknowledging and healing your weaknesses. They remind you of your potential and guide you to live … <\/p>\n