Mentors as Teachers, Learners, and Leaders

Article Link: http://www.exchangepress.com/article/mentors-as-teachers-learners--and-leaders/5021814/

A New Wave of Mentoring Programs in the United States

Early childhood teachers face increasing standards and expectations about what they should know and be able to do in promoting children’s early learning and development. This has led to a dramatic surge in the types and numbers of mentoring opportunities currently operating in the early care and education field. Mentoring is a relationship-based adult learning strategy intended to promote and support a teacher’s awareness and refinement of her professional learning process and teaching practices. Historically, mentoring has been thought of as a strategy to support new teachers, often within the context of their pursuit of higher education, but mentoring now takes place in a wider range of settings, with variations in mentoring goals and mentor-protégé relationships. Most mentoring programs today are designed in the service of quality improvement and are ­supported by a blend of public and philanthropic dollars. Mentoring:

• can take place in a mentor’s work setting, perhaps as a component of a protégé’s participation in formal training or coursework.
• can take place in a protégé’s work setting.
• may be voluntary.
• may be a required element of one’s job or of a center’s participation in a quality improvement initiative.
• ...