"Teach Them That Their Souls Matter": An Auto-Ethnography of Mentorship

• In Event: 63.085 - MTCC Roundtable Session 26
  In Roundtable Session: 63.085-8 - Mentoring Partnerships for Professional Development and Socialization

Abstract

Studies of mentorship have demonstrated the importance of strong, positive relationships in its effectiveness (Kram, 1983; Ragins, 2012). This autoethnographic study contributes to scholarship on this topic through analysis of the ways in which a mentor in my early life shaped my socialization as a classroom teacher and scholar of education. Using Kram’s (1983) framework of the developmental stages of a mentoring relationship, I trace “epiphanies” (Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2010) that reveal important characteristics of the mentor-protégé relationship that allowed it to have great influence on my academic socialization, career trajectory, and practices in the classroom. This study provides lessons for educators about the ways in which powerful mentoring relationships can be built in informal learning spaces.

Author

• Rebecca Cooper Geller, University of California - Los Angeles