Hello again.
With the upcoming finale to this busy semester, it's easy to look back and say, "It wasn't that bad." Getting to this point, I definitely have a different viewpoint. I think that with the book, the Mentor, it highlights that very point. Everyday we make decisions in our lives, sometimes big ones. At the time, they are life changing, difficult decisions. Once the change is done, we usually look back and say, "It wasn't that bad." Yes it had its hard points, but we grow because of it. We have all had these moments, and we will continue to have these moments.
What the Mentor has taught me, is that we are not alone in our struggles. I first started reading the book because I thought mentoring was apart of being an educator. Don't get me wrong, it is, but throughout the book, I found myself in the students thoughts and feelings more often than the reverse. I noticed that I have thought the same way as the people being mentored by Dr. Daloz. I have had doubts, reservations, and fear. I think for a person to be any type of mentor, they need to have had those doubts, reservations, and fear. They have experienced the lost feelings.
I learned alot about myself from this book. It actually stopped being an assignment, and became a learning experience.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Chapter 9-The Art of the Mentor
Yes, mentoring is an art.
Mentoring is not something that is without hardships. Many of us can look back at a time when we were mentoring someone, either formally or informally, and felt like the person was wasting yours and their time. Just because someone asks you for help, doesn't mean that they will ultimately take it.
Dr. Daloz discusses in this chapter how he has not always found people to be easy to deal with. He talks about frustration that he has had with his students. He says he even at times feels betrayed, due to the students refusal to grow. We have all felt this way towards someone, and I am sure, we have all made someone feel this way towards us. When you are dealing with people, there is always a chance to be frustrated, upset, and angry. As educators, these feelings apply also. There are many times we become frustrated with students, because it may feel like we are spinning our wheels and not getting anywhere. This was the first time in the book, where I felt that Dr. Daloz was not just the Super Mentor, but as a real person, who loses it every once in a while.
Mentoring is not something that is without hardships. Many of us can look back at a time when we were mentoring someone, either formally or informally, and felt like the person was wasting yours and their time. Just because someone asks you for help, doesn't mean that they will ultimately take it.
Dr. Daloz discusses in this chapter how he has not always found people to be easy to deal with. He talks about frustration that he has had with his students. He says he even at times feels betrayed, due to the students refusal to grow. We have all felt this way towards someone, and I am sure, we have all made someone feel this way towards us. When you are dealing with people, there is always a chance to be frustrated, upset, and angry. As educators, these feelings apply also. There are many times we become frustrated with students, because it may feel like we are spinning our wheels and not getting anywhere. This was the first time in the book, where I felt that Dr. Daloz was not just the Super Mentor, but as a real person, who loses it every once in a while.
Chapter 8-The Yoda Factor
I have to admit, I think Yoda is awesome. Yes, he is a puppet, but that is beside the point. He had the wisdom, and know how to teach a young Jedi wanna-be to be a true Jedi warrior. Yoda was not an imposing figure, he was able to get his point across through his words (strange as they were).
What Yoda did was reminded Luke of his destiny. Yoda was constantly reminding Luke of his goals. This is what you need to do, to reach your goals. As a mentor, a big part of your job is to remind your student of their end goals. To challenge them to be better than yesterday.
What are things mentors do:
Support
Challenge
Allowing Vision
This trilogy can provide the mentor and their students with the tools they will need to be successful. We don't need to be Yoda or Mr. Miyagi to be a mentor.
What Yoda did was reminded Luke of his destiny. Yoda was constantly reminding Luke of his goals. This is what you need to do, to reach your goals. As a mentor, a big part of your job is to remind your student of their end goals. To challenge them to be better than yesterday.
What are things mentors do:
Support
Challenge
Allowing Vision
This trilogy can provide the mentor and their students with the tools they will need to be successful. We don't need to be Yoda or Mr. Miyagi to be a mentor.
Chapter 7-The Ecology of Adult Learning
This chapter talked about barriers and incentives to learning and growth.
One of the things that Dr. Daloz says that a mentor needs to do is understand how they can influence the environments that hold students as they grow, and how they can orchestrate the world between the student and the changing world.
Sounds pretty daunting to me.
People are prisoners to the environments they encase themselves in. We feel cozy comfy in our own little worlds. The job of the mentor is to bring students out of their life cozy zone. When this occurs, real growth and development can occur. We can all think of a time when we were inside our comfort zone, and someone asked us to step outside of it. We were tentative at first, and probably a bit upset at the person, but we usually do it. After we do it, we look back and think that it was fun, or you were glad you did it. Just in that little bit, we had a barrier and an incentive to learning and growth. We throw up the barrier (our comfort zone), but let it down, and we gain the incentive (a good time) when we did it.
The main theme here is to get outside your comfort zone, and gain those incentives to learning and growth. We prevent ourselves from learning and experiencing, nobody else does.
One of the things that Dr. Daloz says that a mentor needs to do is understand how they can influence the environments that hold students as they grow, and how they can orchestrate the world between the student and the changing world.
Sounds pretty daunting to me.
People are prisoners to the environments they encase themselves in. We feel cozy comfy in our own little worlds. The job of the mentor is to bring students out of their life cozy zone. When this occurs, real growth and development can occur. We can all think of a time when we were inside our comfort zone, and someone asked us to step outside of it. We were tentative at first, and probably a bit upset at the person, but we usually do it. After we do it, we look back and think that it was fun, or you were glad you did it. Just in that little bit, we had a barrier and an incentive to learning and growth. We throw up the barrier (our comfort zone), but let it down, and we gain the incentive (a good time) when we did it.
The main theme here is to get outside your comfort zone, and gain those incentives to learning and growth. We prevent ourselves from learning and experiencing, nobody else does.
Chapter 6-Returning Home
Hopefully by now those who have followed this blog, I am not giving a chapter summary. I think that would be boring, and a waste of your time. What I like to do is find a point within the chapter and discuss it, and how it relates to me, and maybe to you.
In this chapter, Dr. Daloz talks about reaching for new heights. He says that a major issue, and something people should never do when they are trying to make a change, is to LOOK BACK. We all have probably heard of Lot's wife, who turned around to witness the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah, and turned to stone. That was God's way of saying, that's not what were supposed to do. Obviously, we will not turn to stone, but the idea is there. If a person is to make permanent change, they can't look back at what they had prior. Yes, the experience was real, and we all learn from previous experiences, but we need to LOOK FORWARD, not back.
This is a subject I am currently working on in my own life. I have career goals in mind, but it's tough to make the decision to leave my current job. It may mean moving to a different city, starting over with new friends, and starting in a new job. It is very easy to LOOK BACK. This chapter showed me that to make those tough changes, you need to take a look forward, and start walking, because if you turn around, it will be very easy to stop.
In this chapter, Dr. Daloz talks about reaching for new heights. He says that a major issue, and something people should never do when they are trying to make a change, is to LOOK BACK. We all have probably heard of Lot's wife, who turned around to witness the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah, and turned to stone. That was God's way of saying, that's not what were supposed to do. Obviously, we will not turn to stone, but the idea is there. If a person is to make permanent change, they can't look back at what they had prior. Yes, the experience was real, and we all learn from previous experiences, but we need to LOOK FORWARD, not back.
This is a subject I am currently working on in my own life. I have career goals in mind, but it's tough to make the decision to leave my current job. It may mean moving to a different city, starting over with new friends, and starting in a new job. It is very easy to LOOK BACK. This chapter showed me that to make those tough changes, you need to take a look forward, and start walking, because if you turn around, it will be very easy to stop.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Chapter 5-The Dynamic of Transformation
In this chapter, Dr. Daloz discussed how the learning changes the learner.
In the chapter, the author tells a story about how a friend learned to swim. Here's the story:
"He was out wading on the lakeshore when all of a sudden he stepped off an underwater cliff; the bottom feel away. He panicked and started kicking with his feet and pushing with his hands. Somehow that allowed him to keep his head above water and get turned around until he got his feet under him again and made it to shore. He said, 'I guess I didn't learn to swim at that moment, but I got the idea. You can't move the same way when the water is over your head, as you do when it isn't."
What I like about this story, and above all else in this chapter really stood out to me, was that we learn through experience. We often find ourselves in situations where we need to figure it out, and quick. This swimming incident was one of those times. The friend did what he thought would work. He may have seen other kids doing this, so it was a natural reaction to start doing it when he was forced to.
We are all like the boy learning to swim. Many times we need to just figure it out, and trust that it will work. Luckily, the flapping of arms and legs worked, and he didn't just sink to the bottom. Sometimes we need to just start flapping our arms and legs and hope for the best.
In the chapter, the author tells a story about how a friend learned to swim. Here's the story:
"He was out wading on the lakeshore when all of a sudden he stepped off an underwater cliff; the bottom feel away. He panicked and started kicking with his feet and pushing with his hands. Somehow that allowed him to keep his head above water and get turned around until he got his feet under him again and made it to shore. He said, 'I guess I didn't learn to swim at that moment, but I got the idea. You can't move the same way when the water is over your head, as you do when it isn't."
What I like about this story, and above all else in this chapter really stood out to me, was that we learn through experience. We often find ourselves in situations where we need to figure it out, and quick. This swimming incident was one of those times. The friend did what he thought would work. He may have seen other kids doing this, so it was a natural reaction to start doing it when he was forced to.
We are all like the boy learning to swim. Many times we need to just figure it out, and trust that it will work. Luckily, the flapping of arms and legs worked, and he didn't just sink to the bottom. Sometimes we need to just start flapping our arms and legs and hope for the best.
Chapter 4-The Unsettling Steps of an Educational Journey
For this blog, I try not to make it sound like a book report, because that would be boring. What I have tried to do is relate the material to things that I feel is relevant. The title of this chapter is, what I think, are steps we all have taken in our lives. For some, these steps are harder than others, but we all take them.
Dr. Daloz starts the chapter by saying" As they head off on the first leg of their journey, students often sense that their educational travels will require them to let go of old ways of seeing." What Daloz was saying was that because they are learning, they need to change their points of view, opinions and thoughts. Some students feel they need to change completely. According to Daloz, as a mentor, their job is to understand the nature of the changes that are asked of the student. The first way of doing this is by understanding motivation. As we have learned in the AET program, motivation plays a key role in adult education. What is motivating this person to seek a change? Career, financial, transitional periods, etc. Understanding why a person does what they do, it critical to understanding the trepidations of the first unsettling steps of an educational journey.
As a mentor, Daloz identifies a few guiding principles in assisting students in treading these troubling waters:
-Engender trust-gaining trust is critical to getting people to open up about their motivations
-Give the student a voice-in the first posts on this blog, I said that Daloz believed that a mentors job was to ask inquiring questions, but not add suggestions. By giving the student a voice, the mentor allows them to make the final decision, without outside influences.
The funny part about this book, it that I see myself in both situations, as the student and as the mentor. As an educator, I am constantly guiding my students, asking questions, and providing information. On the other hand, I also see myself as the student, who needs guidance, reassurance, and inquiring questions to assist me in my decision making. I guess you are never just one or the other, we will always be both.
Dr. Daloz starts the chapter by saying" As they head off on the first leg of their journey, students often sense that their educational travels will require them to let go of old ways of seeing." What Daloz was saying was that because they are learning, they need to change their points of view, opinions and thoughts. Some students feel they need to change completely. According to Daloz, as a mentor, their job is to understand the nature of the changes that are asked of the student. The first way of doing this is by understanding motivation. As we have learned in the AET program, motivation plays a key role in adult education. What is motivating this person to seek a change? Career, financial, transitional periods, etc. Understanding why a person does what they do, it critical to understanding the trepidations of the first unsettling steps of an educational journey.
As a mentor, Daloz identifies a few guiding principles in assisting students in treading these troubling waters:
-Engender trust-gaining trust is critical to getting people to open up about their motivations
-Give the student a voice-in the first posts on this blog, I said that Daloz believed that a mentors job was to ask inquiring questions, but not add suggestions. By giving the student a voice, the mentor allows them to make the final decision, without outside influences.
The funny part about this book, it that I see myself in both situations, as the student and as the mentor. As an educator, I am constantly guiding my students, asking questions, and providing information. On the other hand, I also see myself as the student, who needs guidance, reassurance, and inquiring questions to assist me in my decision making. I guess you are never just one or the other, we will always be both.
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