Mentors and Teachers: Their Educative Roles

In my Social Contract series an item entitled "Mentor System of Education" dealt with how a social contract between mentor and student can be useful in structuring the educative process by which a learner can progress toward insinuating himself into a social milieu that will significantly benefit society.  I want to amplify upon those methods and procedures of mentorship that lead to a binding continuity between the past and future of society not offered through the teaching situation.

I take it that teachers disburse bits of information and facts.  These are clustered in a hierarchical structure of  items known as concepts or topics.  By discoursing upon concepts, facts and informational items (which answer the question, "Did you know that...?") become meaningful and understandable.  Even a TV program like "Jeopardy" organizes its informational questions about topics.  The program does not demand of contestants to ask a question "out of the blue" concerning some factual item presented in the half-hour show but in light of the topic under which an item is listed.  In sum. teaching involves the interplay of teacher and student in a process of disseminating knowledge involving a subject matter, i.e., a concept.

Contrast that methodology, which I take to be the essence of teaching, to what is the methodology of mentorship.  Mentors, using a serial approach to topics, demonstrate the value of what is learned in the classroom or in the field.  They offer their learners recipes to solve problems and achieve tangible results in the world.  They are responsible for their beleif that knowledge is power and they can prove it!

This paper details the steps involved in educating through the mentorship learning process, which I place in a contractual relationship between mentor and learner, e.g., a protege, a student. But the mentor must have organizational backing and certification for any learning experience he provides. He must not act alone without institutional commitment.

It does not mean that in emphasizing mentorship, teachers are passe, only that teaching must be placed in a greater context that mentorship provides.  Let's enumerate the way mentorship ought to take place, in my opinion, to justify my claim that mentorship has greater importance to education than the mere teaching of concepts does, when at the moment of my writing this, teaching is deemed the major component in educating youth and those experiencing significant change in their lives in institutional settings.

Be it noted, that long before there were schools and cooperate learning centers, learners depended upon their parents; and experienced tradesmen were the mentors bent upon guiding the young toward a respected place in society.  A learner still does.  From one's mother a child is taught how to tie his shoe; a girl to cook and take care of the house; and from an established tradesman or expert, possibly his father, a boy is taught a trade, becoming first an apprentice.

But with the advent of schools, historically emphasis was placed upon getting an education by learning facts and amassing knowledge through the deployment of concepts and was taken away from mentorship learning of how to solve problems in the real world and do things that make a contribution to society.  The mentorship form of learning was relegated in the school curriculum to an area known as "vocational education."  It is the purpose of this paper to restore mentorship to its proper place in the educative process, for after all,  a learner's amassing knowledge of processes comes short of demonstrating the capability in knowing how to do things that make a difference for the social good.

I noticed when I was in Omaha last, the parents of delinquent or direction-less kids were looking to a program enlisting community volunteers to act as mentors, this program established in major cities across the country called the Cities of Service coalition.  An established societal member identified as a mentor shares his success story and acts as an inspiration in other ways to motivate the troubled learner toward becoming a responsible citizen in his community.  A major problem with such volunteer programs in my opinion is that there's no organizational involvement or backing behind the mentor's inspirational words and guidance. Hence, the need for a contract between mentor with organizational blessing and the learner, making clear what is being offered to the learner to engage in mentorship.  I am aware that IBM has recently inaugurated a program for students that recognizes the need for organizational involvement:  if a student passes a set of courses available in high school or college and meets other requirements of participation in their mentorship program, the student will have priority placement for jobs that become available at IBM.

So, I am proposing a plan of mentorship involving the social contract concept to take place in steps toward realizing an educative goal that the learner is desirous of pursuing.  At the conclusion of each step in that process the learner will achieve greater awareness of his own personal identity, i.e., he will know who he is by virtue of what he can do!  Incidentally, one of the egregious complaints a typical student makes is that though he has acquired much book knowledge, he still does not know who he is.  That's because he has not acquired skills of applying his conceptual knowledge to real-life situations.

Steps in the Mentorship Educative Sequence 

1.  The learner must identify an organization he might be willing to join once he receives appropriate training.  The organization, in turn, should identify an inhouse mentor who could detail what he needs to know in order to qualify for mentorship at the particular institution contacted.  First contact in  this step is the learner's visit to the institution of his interest, e.g., an agricultural school of a university he misht be willing to attend.

2.  Next, knowing what would be required of him, the student should discuss with the school or the learning instiution he presently attends the training and coursework that will enable him to proceed one step further towaad  his educative goal, e.g., the next institution he envisions attending.  He starts the discussion by showing what his perspective mentor at such an institution would demand of him as learnerunder hiis tutelege.

3.  The student engages in a tailored educative experience, meeting occasionally with the perspective mentor, acknowledged as such by an organizational symbol, e.g., the organization's letterhead,  on correspondence confirming communications between the perspective mentor and his learner.
.
4.  The perspective mentor even at an early stage of coming under the mentor's care must offer support and counsel useful to the learner.  When the learner advances to the level where the perspective mentor becomes the mentor, e.g., is attending the institution where the mentor works or teaches, these discussions of intention now become conferences regarding performance and advancement.

5.  Gradually, as the learner demonstrates skill acquisition and maturity in his field of endeavor the mentor should introduce the learner to new and exiciting opportunities awaiting his learner who is developing an even
greater repetoire of skills and abilities, indicating his achieving significant progress toward of  his educative goal.

See W. Brad Johnson and  Charles R. Ridley, The Elements of Mentoring (2004) for a further discussion of some of these steps. 

What the Mentor Gets from his participation in the project    

Obviously, there must be something in it for an individual professional businessperson to participate in a program of mentoring others who are designated as learners, even proteges. Such a list might include:

1.  Professional recognition by publication or even by obtaining a job elsewhere.  It is not uncommon for a learner who has set out on his own and done well to bring along his mentor to work for him or to recommend his mentor for hiring to someone he knows.  Minimally, the company or university the mentor works for will usually acknowledge his contribution internally.  Or, the mentor may reach sufficient status and reputation through his being a mentor to establish his own business, e.g., in sculpture; in painting.

2.  The learner who has advanced to the stage of mentorship in which he is contractually under the mentor's
tutelege becomes the "eyes and ears" of the mentor in whatever capacity the learner is assigned.  The mentor who has seveeral learners under his care might rightfully claim he knows what's going on where he works as much as his boss--his tentacles of mentorship reaching into all aspects of the organization.

   3.  He may also make social contacts through a protege, even one leading to marriage or intimate friendship. A mentor not limited, as are teachers', to a non-fraternizing ralationship--to my knowledge.

So, there's lots to be gained by being a mentor, if the individual plays it right!

Societal Benefit from Mentorship

Ever since the age of 23, I've worked on and off with gangs--the last being in Raleigh, North Carolina three or four years ago, when I worked with a gang of 50!  Gangs rely on peer mentors to retain their cohesion.  I understand there's been a dramatic increase in gangs in the country.

I believe mentorship involving insitutions and places of learning are an imporrtant way to overcome gang influence in society. A mentor having institutional backing to my mind can overweigh the effects of peer pressure, if the hopes instilled in the learner can come to fruition, i.e. are legitimate.