Hello,
 
I work for the Northwest Professional Development Center, one of six
Professional Development Centers in Pennsylvania.  Last program year, we
began a mentoring program where we paired more experienced
supervisors/instructors with less experienced supervisors/instructors.
It was a pilot project, and we learned a lot from those who
participated.  We found that within agency mentoring was very valuable,
because staff have fewer barriers when getting together for face to face
meetings, and agency goals are shared by both participants.  Although
mentoring sometimes does occur within an agency, we felt that we were
able to formalize a process that was perhaps taking place informally and
less often.  Geographical distance made interagency mentoring more of a
challenge, but participants still believed that the experience was
worthwhile and afforded them the opportunity to learn how other agencies
provided services, which was extremely eye opening.  We were also very
pleased to find that the mentoring project was so beneficial to
administrators.  Although the less experienced administrators reported
to us the many benefits of being paired with someone more experienced,
all administrators found participation to be worthwhile, because they
learned from their mentees, and they also had the opportunity to
re-think some of the ways in which they currently operated, as a result
of discussions with their mentees.  The administrators who served as
mentors epitomized the term, life long learner, and were always willing
to try new ideas in their own programs.  As a result, they were very
interested in growing during the mentoring process as much as those whom
they mentored were.
 
I truly believe that informal mentoring is occurring all of the time,
but we may not identify it as such, because it is simply part of our
daily work in the field or a part of our daily lives.  I have had the
opportunity to be informally mentored by my supervisor, Bootsie Barbour,
for the past ten years.  I never really thought of her as a mentor,
until I began talking to others about the mentoring process.  Mentors
are role models, and everything that they provide is not always evident
immediately.  Like any other type of professional development, an
individual needs to have time to think (reflect) on the experience and
use what has been learned on the job.  It is harder to measure increased
self-confidence, increased knowledge, and stronger job performance in
the short term, because many of the skills that lead to these desired
outcomes take a little bit longer to develop than some that are more
immediate.  However, these are the outcomes of mentoring.
 
I think it is also important to mention that throughout our lives, we
may be fortunate enough to be mentored by many individuals--on the job
and in our personal lives.  I just think that we may not have realized
that these individuals were mentoring us at the time.
 
 
Joy Zamierowski
Northwest Professional Development Center
2919 State Street
Erie, PA 16508
814-878-2010
http://web.mac.com/nwpdc/NWPDC/Home_Page.html
<http://www.nwpdc.org/>  
 
 

________________________________

From: specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of David J. Rosen
Sent: Monday, September 28, 2009 8:09 PM
To: specialtopics at nifl.gov
Subject: [SpecialTopics 1413] No mentoring in Adult Literacy?


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
 
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