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.
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I am also reading this book and your last comment here ties into what I just read in chapter 6 where he discusses that as we are "under construction" in the learning process it is not seperate from our "other" life. Our connections and point of reference have to bridge to all the varoius roles we play.
ReplyDeleteIt seems ironic that while many of us seek change, we also seek not to change. In other words, we want a promotion, but we don't want to have to change ourselves to get it. We want the positive without the sometimes painful internal transformation that must take place.
ReplyDeleteThis is a challenge personally, and this is a challenge when acting as a mentor. I recall mentoring a new teacher who, I gathered, had led a pretty sheltered life. So much so that she just really couldn't process constructive criticism. She was receiving a lot of it -- especially from the administration. It was hard to watch. And I don't know that I mentored her all that well according to Daloz's suggestions. I finally got to the point where I just had to say, "Listen. You may not agree with what they're telling you, but if you want to keep your job, you probably should act as if you do."