The mentor's journey

The metaphor of journey is commonly applied to student learning. It is easy to conceive of a student on a journey from one preliminary state of being to another, more educated state. They arrive at their destination knowing more, seeing the world from a new viewpoint and with more nuanced understanding of the world. The journey changes them. A mentor's destination might not be as clearly articulated as that of a student, or even considered at all, but they are undisputedly on a journey of transformation - they cannot fail to be affected by their relationship with a student. Perhaps, though, the extent to which they are transformed depends upon opportunities to reflect. This might occur in the company of a critical friend, through flashes of insight during practice, or in conversation with their students.

Daloz (1999), drawing on his research with adult learners in higher education, suggested that mentors do three distinct things - they support, challenge and provide vision. Mentors make intuitive judgements of when to support and when to challenge so that they provide sufficient support to enable the student to trust them and to feel confident enough to try out new things. Too much challenge can destabilise a student and cause them to retreat into a 'safe' mode which stifles development. Providing vision can be achieved, for example, by modelling the endpoint of the learning journey (when students might have aspirations to become like their mentor), or offering students ways to see the practices and ways of working that make up the tradition they are entering.

In my PhD thesis, there appear to be several journeys - the student journey that mentors dip in and out of, the mentor journey and my own journey of transformation. Any journey of this sort can be hard and forces one to leave something of the old self behind. The people around  you may also need support to recognise the journey you have travelled.

Daloz, L. A. (1999). Mentor: Guiding the Journey of Adult Learners, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.

Reflections on discussion with HSC Practice learning research group

I thought a useful way to start talking about my more recent considerations of mentoring and learning styles was to introduce the different mentoring styles (and the metaphors) that I had identified. I could then steer it to what people think of the concept of learning styles, and/or to the idea of “do mentors teach” depending on responses.

There was initial interest in the hierarchy I had created (low-high intervention) and some discussion about what values should be placed on this. Low intervention isn’t necessarily a negative. This is interesting for me in the sense that I hadn’t said that low intervention was necessarily of lower value than high intervention, but there seemed to be an immediate sense around the table that I was saying that, and perhaps the way I described the mentors reinforced this impression. This may well reflect my own feelings that the mentors I placed at the high intervention end seemed to have more energy for the role and seemed to have thought in great depth about how they can support students. This could, of course, be more a case of being more able or willing to talk about what they do and find the words to describe it. People often do think that doing more is better. Perhaps it shows greater motivation and greater application to the task or role.

What is the “right” disposition to be a mentor? Can mentors intervene too much and become “toxic”? One type of toxic mentor described by Lou Ann Darling (1985) is the “hoverer” who blocks development by too close supervision. The idea of “too close supervision?” was discussed in the Trust Chapter, and very specific explanations were given by the mentors concerned as to why they were supervising closely at those times. In fact, the reasons were very different and the mentors felt very differently about them. I didn't get any sense that these participants were toxic in any way, and the circumstances for close supervision were quite appropriate. We did agree, though, that working as co-workers needs to be valued as a valid way of supporting workplace learning.

We tried to come up with a metaphor for the mentor who I’d labelled as the person who was team oriented and offered a menu of experiences rather than see herself as a direct source of learning for the student. “Quality Street” was one offering. I like this, as I do think she offered quality to students.

Another way of articulating what mentors do is to say that they are negotiating and brokering a learning contract with students. The idea of mentors as brokers of learning is an interesting one, and may offer another way of thinking about what the role is and how mentors experience it.

The discussion has made me think about role modelling. I gave one of my mentors the label “role model” because she stood out as being very aware of how people viewed her and thoughts about how she came across to others seemed uppermost for her. She also had very definite views on the nursing profession and how it is viewed, and that it was important that students were made aware of this. However, it is probably true that all mentors recognise their role model potential and some of my participants talked about influential role models for them in the past. Another of the participants struck me as, if anything, a “reluctant role model” because she felt uncomfortable being observed by students and couldn’t see the point of learning by observation, as it was something that had never worked for her. Whether or not you are a role model for someone else is something you have little control over. Also, you can pick a role model for yourself without making that person aware, but perhaps you are even sometimes unaware yourself that you are doing it. “Role modelling” is a mentoring strategy that has been described recently by Bob Price in the Nursing Standard (Nov 2009). He talks about “role modelling sessions” as defined, planned activities that end with guided reflection. It is clear that I need to be aware that when using the term “role model” there is a range of meanings and activities that are associated with it and I’ll need to be explicit about what I mean by it.

I needed to explain about the data collection, the questions I asked or didn’t ask and why. It goes to show how pivotal the data collection process is - something to remember when writing up.