Mentoring and Unmentoring Leaders in Education and Other Professions

• In Event: 70.065 - Roundtable Session 27
  In Roundtable Session: 70.065-12 - Division I Roundtable D. Mentoring of Experts by Experts: Dyadic Workplace Learning in Education and Other Professions

Abstract

Combining philosophical analysis of educational practice (Scheffler, 1993; Marom, 2009) with "cross-professional" research on pedagogies of training (Grossman et. al, 2009), this paper considers the conceptual basis of mentoring pedagogies for leadership in the "impossible professions of human improvement" (Cohen, 2010).
A survey I conducted of existing research on training in medicine, psychotherapy, social work and the clergy indicates that mentoring for leaders in these professions is generally focused on career advancement within reigning conceptions and methods of practice. Accordingly, leaders who advance their fields by going beyond existing ideas and protocols will generally have done so without been mentored.
After examining various instances of, and exceptions to, this phenomenon (Bennett, 1989; Berman, 2004; Gawande, 2002, 2010; Kitwood, 1997), the paper focuses on mentoring practices in education. Recent studies confirm that they are largely designed to enable experienced practitioners to induct younger colleagues into the existing norms of practice and to empower them to succeed within those norms at higher levels of responsibility. The aims of most mentorships are described as psychosocial development (modeling), professional development (advising) and career advancement (brokering) (Mertz, 2004). In response, researchers pose the question of whether such mentoring "encourages a tendency to maintain the status quo" or reinforces existing practices "whether they were worthy of retaining or not." (Barnett & O'Mahony, 2008; Grogan & Crow 2004).
What mode of mentoring pedagogy could be appropriate for educational leaders to go and help others go beyond existing modes of educational practice? The paper analyzes the conceptual basis of one such pedagogy that is currently being implemented at the Mandel School for Educational Leadership (MSEL) in Jerusalem. Focusing on MSEL's handbook for mentors and other documents of practice from the last decade, interviews with mentors and mentees, evaluation reports and internal research findings, this analysis identifies this pedagogy's guiding aims, assumptions and concepts.
Two findings are discussed in detail. First, the conceptual definition of professional leadership implied by MSEL mentorship is that it takes place in the domain between existing conventions of professional practice and an open universe of depths and complexities that are always assumed to be greater than theoretical understandings or practical solutions. This space is seen as one in which the deeper philosophical ideas and larger purposes of the profession are formulated, scrutinized and are consequently adopted as a basis for professional practice.
Second, the pedagogy of facilitating such leadership is described as the undertaking of a joint “deliberative journey.” This concept draws inspiration from the complex and sophisticated curricular planning theory of Joseph Schwab (Westbury and Wilkof 1978, Fox 1985) - which played a central role in the vision of the founder of the fellowship program and its curriculum.
The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this alternative for research on the mentoring of experts by experts.

Author

• Daniel Marom, Mandel Leadership Institute