Mentoring in the Workplace

With a corporate background, the lens in which I perceive education in Australia has a very practical, realistic and pragmatic skew. My sentiments are shared by many which leads to a sense of duty for teachers like myself to develop some kind of stewardship and legacy for us to pass onto future teachers. Mentors have an effective role and should be innovative in creating efficiencies within the industry with the understanding that "someone’s hindsight can be another's foresight" (Drucker, P.F, cited 13 August 2017).

 

The mentoring process has progressed in may professions and is crucial to the development of many starting out in the business sector and in particular start-ups but from a practical standpoint, I have not seen many mentoring programs or relationships be fruitful, long lasting or in abundance within the education setting - for new start teachers as well as for students. I currently, don’t have a mentor myself and have struggled to find many ex or current teachers willing to give their time and effort into mentoring future talent in the industry. Especially, within secondary school teaching setting.

 

Being a big believer in learning from other people’s mistakes, mentoring has become a fad in recent times but I would like to know what the key roles are of mentors, are there key ways to create long lasting, effective mentor/mentee relationships for teachers and in turn develop programs so that students can benefit from such relationships. Maybe, providing avenues for students to access crucial information/advice and maybe decrease the high levels of anxiety and angst which exist in our secondary school cohorts. Even minimise the negative persona and perceived heavy workloads that teachers think they face.