Mentoring as Enculturation of New Teachers Into Communities of Ongoing Professional Learning for Change

• In Event: 47.080 - The Value of Mentoring to Improve Teaching Practices: International Perspectives

Abstract

“I went in there [the classroom] thinking I’ll impress those students, but I couldn’t stand being there even half an hour…” This was a first-day teaching experience of an ESL teacher, Pratap (a pseudonym).
My paper has a two-fold purpose: first, to analyze the mentoring support Pratap received in an informal Teacher Development Group (hereafter, TDG) and second, to use the implications emerging from this empirical research to conceptualize a model of mentoring given the socio-cultural context of India’s education system where this study is located and those of similar contexts. The significance of this paper lies in positioning mentoring within a community of ongoing professional learning and development (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2000; Mooney Simmie & Moles, 2011). This positioning not only helps increase teacher retention by providing the emotional support new teachers require in tiding over their practice shock but also puts them on a trajectory of career-long ‘self-determined’ learning (Levy-Feldman, 2018). Such ongoing learning is important for teachers in negotiating the emergent dilemmas in their workplace exacerbated by the current educational and technological imperatives which are marked by an unprecedented pace of change.
In the Indian context, the conceptualization of mentoring as a developmental relationship between the mentor and mentees to promote ongoing professional development (NCTE, 2009) is linked to its historical situation. A growing need for qualified teachers followed the introduction of mass education after its independence in 1947. The problem posed by this new demand was not merely one of coping with increased numbers but included the cultural challenge of providing an inclusive educational environment to vast sections of socioeconomically disadvantaged and culturally diverse students, who were earlier denied access to education. Concerns with equity and social justice through education (GOI, 1949; RTE, 2009) have resulted in policy statements that envision a dialogic mentoring model to help teachers develop the agency to facilitate culturally responsive and participatory learning in the classroom (NCERT, 2005). However, what persists in the paradoxically situated practice is traditional mentoring in a hierarchical relationship that fails to empower teachers as reflective facilitators (Batra, 2009; Author, 2018: Sriprakash, 2011).
My study, which is informed by a sociocultural perspective (Vygotsky, 1978), takes into account the constraints to teacher change posed by the institutional imposition of regulatory controls over teachers’ practices.
The qualitative data for analysis is drawn from documents and initial interviews of five ESL teachers (including Pratap) who were part of the TDG where I mentored them as a more experienced peer. In addition to this, the TDG discussions and inquiry-based activities were recorded and transcribed.
The findings show that teachers, including Pratap, developed greater autonomy in their work as they negotiated the contrary pulls exerted by the imperative to comply with institutional mandates of standardization and the more ‘internally persuasive’( Bakhtin, 1981) urge to engage students in their ‘subjective zones’ (Chaiklin, 2003). The findings also indicate that a supportive and caring community is an important ingredient in promoting individual teacher’s development towards change.

Author

• Tara Ratnam, Independent Teacher Educator