Hello- I have never had any kind of official mentor.  I have had
encouragement from people whom I have met at state conferences. Twice,
about 3 years apart, our state literacy organization (Liteacy Texas) held
a "new directors workshop" which I found very valuable.  We are the only
CBO adult literacy agency in town. We do have cordial and cooperative
relationships with the folks across the river in the next county. We share
training and United Way information. While this kind of collaboration is
good and helpful, and runs both ways (we help and get helped), I am not
sure I could call any of it mentoring. As to becoming a mentor, I hope
that much of my supervision and training of our wonderful new program
assistant could be, at least in part, mentoring.

Mary V. Gleason
Executive Director, CC Literacy Council
4044 Greenwood Dr., CC, TX 78416
(361) 857-5896   Fax: 854-5898


> Hi, Colleagues,

>

>

>

> I've been very lucky to have had many, many great mentors in my adult

> education career.   In some cases they were supervisors. In others they

> were peers (including adult learners) with whom I worked on projects.

>

>

>

> They provided a mix of guidance (feedback, suggestions, ideas), material

> support (they might have been my employer or someone who helped me get

> funding for a project), encouragement (especially when we ran into

> resistance or a lack of resources), and a sounding board (during

> brainstorming and gripe sessions).

>

>

>

> I won't list them all here right now, but I want to thank all those

> great mentors.

>

>

>

> Paul Jurmo

>

>

>

> From: specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov

> [mailto:specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Katherine Mercurio

> Gotthardt

> Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 8:41 AM

> To: specialtopics at nifl.gov

> Subject: [SpecialTopics 1424] Re: No mentoring in Adult Literacy?

>

>

>

> What would formal mentoring "look like"?  Obviously, I have never had a

> formal mentor : )

>

> On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 10:35 PM, Rosemary Dill <rhdill at yahoo.com>

> wrote:

>

> In my years of Adult ESL ( more than 20) I have never been formally

> mentored. In a  couple of settings, I was informally mentored which was

> very very helpful to me.

>

> I would like to see more formal mentoring in the Adult Education

> community.New teachers usually have lots of questions, both educational

> and procedural, and they often are not sure where to turn for help.

>

>

>

> Rosemary Dill

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

> Mon, 9/28/09, David J. Rosen <djrosen123 at gmail.com> wrote:

>

>

> 	From: David J. Rosen <djrosen123 at gmail.com>

>

>

> 	Subject: [SpecialTopics 1413] No mentoring in Adult Literacy?

>

> 	To: specialtopics at nifl.gov

> 	Date: Monday, September 28, 2009, 8:08 PM

>

>

>

> 	Colleagues,

>

>

>

> 	I am disappointed at the poor response to these two questions

> about mentoring. Perhaps you have meant to reply but have put it off.

> Don't delay much longer. This discussion ends tomorrow, Tuesday,

> September 29th.

>

> 	*	 Have you been formally or informally mentored by an

> experienced adult education leader? If so, was that a positive

> experience? If so, what made it especially beneficial?

>

> 	*	Have you mentored a potential adult literacy education

> leader? If so, was that a positive experience? If so, what do you think

> was especially effective?

>

> 	Maybe not many people in our field have mentored someone, or

> have been mentored. If so, we may have a serious leadership problem.

> Leadership requires good models, of course, but would-be leaders also

> need help, support, encouragement, people who believe in them, people

> who will take the time to show them how to be effective.

>

>

>

> 	I have been mentored and I have mentored. My mentors did not

> necessarily think of themselves as my "mentor", and I am sure the people

> I have mentored have thought of me more as just someone who cared enough

> about them to answer their questions, take them seriously, suggest some

> other ways of solving problems, and most important, someone who believed

> they had the makings of good leadership and wanted to see them succeed.

>

>

>

> 	I am less interested in whether we have formal mentorships with

> that name, although these might be useful. I am interested to know

> whether mentoring is taking place, if people new to our field are

> getting the support they need to be education leaders.

>

>

>

> 	Now is the time to speak up, please. What and how is our field

> doing with mentoring? Even if all you have to say about this is "I never

> thought about this before. I have never seen mentoring in this field.

> What is it?" now would be a good time to say that.

>

>

>

> 	Of course, if you have mentored or been mentored, tell us about

> that, too.

>

>

>

> 	David J. Rosen

>

> 	Special Topics Discussion Moderator

>

> 	djrosen at theworld.com

> <http://us.mc576.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=djrosen@theworld.com>

>

>

>

>

>

> 	-----Inline Attachment Follows-----

>

> 	-------------------------------

> 	National Institute for Literacy

> 	Special Topics mailing list

> 	SpecialTopics at nifl.gov

> <http://us.mc576.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=SpecialTopics@nifl.gov>

> 	To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go

> to http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/SpecialTopics

> 	Email delivered to rhdill at yahoo.com

> <http://us.mc576.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=rhdill@yahoo.com>

>

>

>

> -------------------------------

> National Institute for Literacy

> Special Topics mailing list

> SpecialTopics at nifl.gov

> To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to

> http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/SpecialTopics

> Email delivered to katherine.gotthardt at gmail.com

>

>

>

>

> --

> Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt

> Community Writer for NEWS AND MESSENGER

> www.insidenova.com

>

> -------------------------------

> National Institute for Literacy

> Special Topics mailing list

> SpecialTopics at nifl.gov

> To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to

> http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/SpecialTopics

> Email delivered to gleasonm at ccliteracy.org