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Mentoring Webs

Covid-19 has magnified how essential physical and emotional safety are for learning. As we seek to support our colleagues (and ourselves) an important question is who mentors the mentors? While mentoring webs of support have always been integral to our well-being and growth, I would submit they are more important now than ever.

As mentors, being calm, warm and encouraging is the 50% of the equation we can influence.…and I’d add to that being gentle. Gentle with our students, gentle with each other, and gentle with ourselves. This is my wish for all of us as we learn our way forward together.

Mentoring is... | Building Mentoring Webs | Connecting our Hearts

Multiple Models of Mentorship | Mentoring Hubs | Mentoring Resources

Mentoring is...

The acrostic below represents my thinking about the fundamental aspects essential to any mentoring relationship.

Mutual – Mentoring relationships that flourish are reciprocal – all parties learn and grow

Evolving – Mentors exhibit flexibility of stance and role based on the needs of the person they are supporting

Non-evaluative – Mentoring supports are not connected to evaluation or judgement of a colleague’s performance

Trusting – Relational trust is built through effective listening and fostered in an environment characterized by emotional safety and mutual respect

Open – Through powerful learning designs (e.g., observation and debriefing) practice is deprivatized and the intentional sharing of knowledge and practice occurs

Real – Mentoring activities are personalized, based on each person’s authentic learning goals and connected to their “real world”

Supported – Conditions to foster effective mentoring relationships are supported at both the school and board level (e.g., joint release days, foundational learning for mentors)

Honouring strengths – A deliberate seeking out of the strengths and attributes that each person brings to the mentoring relationship sets the context for meaningful sharing to occur

Invitational – All parties have voluntarily chosen to engage in mentorship

Personalized – Each person may choose to engage in multiple models of mentorship as they build a web of mentoring supports

Reciprocal learning is a foundational component of all mentoring relationships. One of the most powerful outcomes of mentorship is that it serves as a means for job embedded deprivatization of practice and fosters reflection, learning and growth of mentors themselves.

In summary, mentorship is an act of learning.

Building Mentoring Webs

For 12 years, I lived on a houseboat (aka a floating home). I had many amazing experiences with nature including the fact that spiders were everywhere.

Each morning before kayaking I spent several minutes attending to cobwebs with a broom. The webs with only one or two strands were very easy to break apart, whereas the webs with many strands were much stronger, more resilient and secure.

When we think about building a mentoring web that’s the idea – the more strands in the web, the stronger it is. Beyond 1 to 1 “dating game” mentor matching, mentoring webs are constructed by the learner. Each is unique, based on their authentic learning needs.

Structure vs. Relationships

Often when we adapt or adopt an initiative or program, we try to replicate a structure without attending fully to the complexities of relationships which enable the structure to actually be effective. Thinking about our approach to mentorship illuminates this distinction:

  • Do you have a mentor? (structure – a one to one match)
  • Are you being mentored? (relationships – a mentoring web of multiple mentors existing within an environment of relational trust)

Connecting our Hearts with Mentoring Webs

Inside all of our students who come to school each day are their hearts, and inside every heart of every student are their hopes, dreams, and wishes for their lives and learning.

We know creating a safe place for the hearts of our students, is a critical precondition for learning but in order to do this I think it is essential that the hearts of the educators supporting our students are also safe, and secure, and supported.

I see this as a reciprocal process. In other words, our students can become part of our mentoring web and we can become part of theirs.

Looking in the Mirror

Mentoring is an act of learning. One of the most powerful things a mentor can do is help their colleague hold up a mirror to their practice and in this mirror see all their strengths and attributes, not just the flaws and challenges of what isn’t working.

Through this de-privatization of practice, the quiet victories and moments of beauty that teaching provides can be surfaced, elevated and celebrated.

As mentors one of our biggest challenges is to hold up this same mirror to ourselves and not just see our own flaws.

Simply put as a profession we are incredibly hard on ourselves. Our day ends and we don't celebrate our 17 quiet victories, we reflect upon the one (or two or three!) things that went wrong.

In other words, we fail the “best edu-friend” test. If our colleague came to us with their challenges, concerns and worries we’d be so accepting and understanding but somehow it’s difficult to give this same level of acceptance to ourselves. We’re reluctant to acknowledge celebrate and elevate our own strengths and attributes.

Webs of Support

Our learning from the New Teacher Induction Program (NTIP) is helpful here. Through our longitudinal research we found that high growth new teachers access 5 – 7 different mentor supports (i.e. they built a “mentoring web”). The more strands in each of our webs, the stronger and more resilient the webs are.

With these supportive webs, our hearts as educators are warmed and our well-being is supported. Our warm hearts create a space for continued personal and professional learning and growth – for ourselves, for our educator colleagues and ultimately for every student.

Multiple Models of Mentorship

Broker Mentoring
  • Mentor provides orientation to school or work site logistics and culture
  • Mentor brokers involvement of colleagues as needs arise

Considerations

  • Consultant type relationship, fewer opportunities for collaboration and coaching
  • May be initial support until other mentoring relationships are established or ongoing throughout the year
One to One Mentor Matching
  • Mentor is site-based and is matched on an individual basis to a new colleague
  • Mentor adopts consultant, collaboration and coaching stances based on the needs of the person they are working with

Considerations

  • Mentoring relationships that flourish are reciprocal – all parties learn and grow
  • Greater ownership occurs when the mentor has volunteered, and the person being mentored has been involved in the choice of mentor
Group Mentoring
  • Mentor works with 2 or more individuals or one individual may have 2 or more mentors
  • Model provide opportunities for collaboration between both new and experienced colleagues

Considerations

  • Provides flexibility if school or work site has large number of new staff (or mentors)
  • This model is often embedded in a school or site wide “mentoring culture” where all staff are engaged in ongoing collaboration
Informal Mentoring
  • Individuals connect with a variety of colleagues as needs arise
  • Mentor/mentee roles are fluid – often referred to as Peer Mentoring as in many cases the informal mentors are relatively new themselves

Considerations

  • Spontaneous, informal nature of relationship lends itself to collaboration
  • Relying on “accident, geography and friendship” may not work for all as new staff may feel isolated if not part of any mentoring relationships
Online Mentoring
  • Using online conferencing new staff can participate in discussion and sharing with both experienced and other beginning colleagues

Considerations

  • Enables access to a variety of resources and perspectives outside the school or work site
  • Not everyone may feel comfortable sharing issues and concerns in an online forum
Communities of Practice
  • Educators with similar teaching assignments and/or professional interests form learning networks across a region or district
  • These networks may meet face to face and/or online

Considerations

  • Extends the mentoring web beyond school or work site
  • While board level support of these learning networks can be very helpful, it is important that the learning agenda is not externally mandated

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Who are the people at your school or work site (or beyond) who bring you strength, energy, passion and hope? They will be your true mentors.

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Mentoring Hubs

Often when we think about mentoring for new teachers, we rightly focus on the school which is really the heart of where learning occurs for all. In my current work with school boards, an emergent design to augment school-based mentorship has been supporting ongoing communities of practice for small groups of new teachers to learn with experienced colleagues who have similar assignments and/or learning goals.

These mentoring hubs (or networks or webs) foster connection, community, learning and growth for both new and experienced teachers.

Getting Started
  • New teachers identify their learning goals and share these with the board-level New Teacher Induction Program (NTIP) coordinator
  • Goals are clustered based on teaching assignment and common themes (e.g., early years literacy, arts-based learning, intermediate mathematics, etc.)
  • For each cluster of new teachers (approx. 6 – 8), two experienced teachers are recruited to be mentoring hub leaders
  • Foundational mentoring professional learning is provided to the mentoring hub leaders
Learning Designs
  • Each mentoring hub meets 3 or 4 times throughout the school year, with release time provided (dependent upon occasional teacher availability)
  • Authentic learning designs based on the 4 Rs are used, with the agenda for learning driven by the learners
  • Participants have opportunities to engage in classroom observation and debriefing
  • Board level coaches and consultants provide support to each hub
  • Near the end of the school year, the mentoring hub leaders engage in an appreciative inquiry where successful practices are intentionally shared, challenges surfaced and a collaborative strategy harvest of ideas to move forward is co-developed with board NTIP leaders
Outcomes

New teachers are connected with multiple mentors beyond the school site and with each other

  • While this may be especially important for “one alike” assignment teachers (e.g., Core French, Kindergarten) this model helps all teachers add strands to their mentoring web

Learning of mentors

  • Co-leading the hubs increases the mentors reflection on their own practice and also fosters growth by providing system level leadership opportunities

In summary, mentoring hubs can serve as a meaningful augmentation of school-based mentorship. When new and experienced educators work and learn together all our students benefit. New teachers who receive supports through multiple models of mentorship will become the mentors for the next generation of new hires and ultimately of the students they will teach.

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Reflections | Connections | Intersections

  • As a mentor, how might you be able to elevate and celebrate the quiet moments of beauty that occur every day in our classrooms, schools and beyond?
  • What concrete actions could you take in order to help new colleagues build their mentoring webs?
  • How can you continue to build your own web of support?

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Mentoring Resources

Mentoring Webs | Trust | Learning Focused Conversations

Meaningful Feedback | Powerful Mentoring Designs

Mentoring for Mentors