Navigating the Tensions: Vignettes on Mentoring

• In Event: Mentoring Teachers: Navigating Real-World Tensions

Abstract

Navigating the Tensions: Vignettes on Mentoring

Purpose
What we learned from the longitudinal study was that the mentors, as they developed, were constantly negotiating a set of tensions that they found in their schools and through this struggle, they learned how to provide mentor leadership. Mounting a two-year project with the New Teacher Center, we decided to use the tensions in the early study to find out what these tensions looked like in a narrative. The purpose of this paper is to describe the narrative process and how we moved from research on mentor development to using the data to help a group of ten mentors to write narratives where the tensions are embedded in the everyday work life of mentors.

Perspective and Methodological Framework
In getting mentors to write about their experience as mentors,using the tensions as motivation to write, we encouraged the mentors to
write vignettes (Miles, M., Author, Saxl, E., 1988, Author, Miles, M., E. Saxl, 1988). A vignette is more than an example and less
than a case study. With prompts that helped the mentors bound their stories, the vignettes ranged from 6-12 pages long.

Data Sources
Ten mentors wrote vignettes about their work as mentors in different contexts. They exchanged ideas with each other getting feedback on the clarity of their writing, and in two 2 1/2 day retreats, as well as email feedback from the directors of the project, all mentors wrote about particular mentees and the tensions of the context, relationships, and moves to help
novices improve their work. The sources most helpful for the mentors were the descriptions of the five tensions including: developing a new identity (the way mentors learn to adjust to a new role); developing trusting relationships with different members of the school culture (which included veteran teachers, the principal and the mentees); accelerating teacher growth
(which included the tension between providing emotional support to the mentees as well as focusing on instructional content); mentoring in challenging contexts (which included mandates, low performing schools, etc.); and learning leadership skills.

Conclusions
The paper will conclude with several summaries of the vignettes written where the reader can see the acting out of the tensions in a variety of contexts and where one can see the growth of the mentors as leaders as they struggle to negotiate the inevitable tensions that the mentor role must face.

References

Author, Miles, M. & Saxl, E. (1988) Teacher Leadership: Ideology and Practice. In Building a Professional Community in Schools (Ed) Author
New York: Teachers College Press, 148-166.

Miles, M., Author, & E. Saxl (1988) “Key Skills of Educational Change Agents: An Empirical View”, in “Curriculum Inquiry” 18, No, 2, 157-193.

Author

• Ann Lieberman, Stanford University