Педагогічні науки/2. Проблеми
підготовки спеціалістів
Nataliya Havryliv
Lviv Polytechnic National University, Lviv, Ukraine
Mentoring in Education: Historical Overview
Contemporary higher education in post-soviet countries is still
suffering from the influence of theirs historical and political background.
Nationally and locally, the student population is undergoing continuous
important changes. Hence the existing forms of interaction between professors
and students should be improved and many contemporary researches are focused on
this problem.
One of
the newest and the less studied in Eastern-European educational conception of
supporting students is mentoring. At the University, mentoring relationships
are close, individualized relationships that develop over time between a
student and one or more faculty members, or with other professionals who have a
strong interest in the student’s educational and career goals. It includes not
only academic guidance, but also prolonged nurturing of the student’s personal,
scholarly, and professional development. A mentor
might be a professor, a laboratory director, a fellow student, another faculty
member or adviser, a wise friend, or simply another person with greater experience.
In such case, by trainee, mentee or protégé we understand anyone
in a junior or apprentice position, such as an undergraduate or graduate
student, a postdoctoral fellow, or a junior faculty member.
To gain
better understanding of mentoring we have to look more deeply into the genesis
of this approach.
Notion of mentoring was used first time in ancient
times. Around 1200 B.C.
Odysseus was leaving his country and for his long absence he appointed his wise
and trusted friend, Mentor, to become a closest teacher, a father, to his son,
Telemachus. Beyond the mythological stories the notion of
mentoring is really deeply rooted in the times of ancient Greece. Socrates and
other philosophers took a role of mentor for prospective youngsters [3].
Through
the years this concept naturally emerged in different countries and societies,
finally reached recent times. As we know each self-confident community, culture
or even civilization understood that well prepared upbringing of younger
generation is necessary condition for their growth and development. For instance,
social education of young Persian started from the age of 7. Teachers and
mentors were Persians not younger then 50 years old with essential life
experience, who could serve as an example and source of knowledge for young
boys. In other ancient societies the mentoring existed as preparing for
initiation, the moment when boy affiliated to the rest of man’s community
through completing of certain rituals or defined tasks [1].
In a
while an idea of passing the knowledge and experience moved on to the manufacture,
and developed in the relations between master and disciple in the medieval
times. In
the early 1970s, in the United States emerged structured mentoring in business
organizations. Primarily it was aimed at high-flying young men, the roles of
mentor was sponsor and protector of one’s career. A decade later the concept
spread to Europe, and changed its emphasis onto empowering people to take
charge and responsibility of their own professional development. In
Soviet countries, mentoring developed as an instrument of education since the
end of 50s of the last century. It found its place in the system of
technical-professional education and practical studies [3].
In time the context of mentoring was in continuous change and evolution, but
despite different societies and their traditions the
role of mentor was pretty the same: to provide the mentee with guidance, share
own knowledge and wisdom, support the mentee in the way which is most effective
and useful for him or her.
Speaking precisely
about mentoring at the university is useful to recall the definition of Cusanovich and Gilliland, in their book they stated that a “mentoring relationship involves professors acting as close,
trusted, and experienced colleagues and guides. It is recognized that part of
what is learned in graduate school is not cognitive, it is socialization to the
values, practices, and attitudes of a discipline and university, it transforms
the student into a colleague” [2]. Thus, mentoring is not aimed only at
professional development, but also at community development of person –it socializes a mentee
into the culture of science and initiates him/her into the community of
professionals. The wider perspective on mentoring as the instrument of
socialization presents Harriet Zuckerman
(1977), pointing that such socialization “includes more than is ordinarily understood by
education or by training: it involves acquiring the norms and standards, the
values and attitudes, as well as the knowledge, skills, and behaviour patterns
associated with particular statuses and roles” [6].
At different
academic levels, either it’s undergraduate, graduate or post-graduate student,
mentors are needed to offer advice and guidance in academic matters. As sooner
this relations start since entering the university the better understanding of
field student will obtain. On the importance of faculty advising and mentoring
in graduate school, the graduate deans of the Association of American
Universities and the Council of Graduate Schools issued the following statement: “Advice and support from mentors are among
the most important factors in determining the success of students’ doctoral
education. Faculty advisors must assist students in choosing course work that
meets their needs and interests without unnecessarily extending their programs.
They should also encourage students to move on to seminars and laboratory work
that will lead to dissertation topics, and define dissertation topics that are
realistic in scope. Good advisors already do these things; to make sure that
they happened more routinely, departments should establish explicit requirements
for faculty advising” [5].
As we can see
mentoring is often confused and mixed with “coaching”, "thesis
advising," and "research supervising", these means are frequently
used interchangeably. In practice, a mentor may combine all of these
roles, but it is important to note that thesis advisers and
research supervisors are not necessarily mentors. As Lipschutz has argued: “Mentoring graduate students goes beyond merely advising
them. Mentorship
means behaving in ways that indicate respect for students as sources of ideas
and insights (co-authoring papers with them is one way of demonstrating this
respect in fields where jointly authored papers are appropriate),
offering students timely and constructive responses to their work, modelling the
values of the discipline for them, and demonstrating a concern for their
professional welfare (for example, by helping them to obtain academic
positions). In short, mentorship means coming to treat students as
colleagues, not as apprentices.” So the role of a
mentor goes beyond supervising and advising, thus these processes might be
components of mentoring relationship. Not every professor or scientist is
able to become a good mentor, as these relations depends a lot on personal
qualities, such as ability to listen, to support, encourage, and not every
professional embodies needed characteristics [4].
As was mentioned previously,
in ancient societies the first requirement for mentors was their personal
experience, likewise at the university a mentor is a person ho has experienced
the challenges that mentee faces. The second important skill is the ability to
pass that experience, and the third component for fruitful mentoring is personal
will of mentor and mentee to communicate the knowledge and to receive them.
What is more important, it’s personal interest of mentor in successful
professional development of another one.
Three activities
contribute to the academic mentoring relationship. First, academic mentors
educate their mentees in a particular subject or skill, serving as masters to
developing apprentices. Second, academic mentors, as role models, orient their
protégés to the ethics, values, and protocols of a given profession
or discipline. Third, academic mentors provide psychological support for their
protégés by building self-esteem and confidence.
Effective mentoring benefits
everyone involved – the mentee and mentor, the institution. Such a relationship
is a demonstrable opportunity to explore personal, educational or work and
career issues. Mentoring helps one to stay on top of his or her field, to
develop a professional network, and extends the scientist's contributions. Finally,
speaking about the organisation, university,
mentoring gives to its members the sense of community, one family at the same
time it provides the institution with new thoughts regarding the improvement of
relationships in the team.
Besides the benefits there are challenges and difficulties which might
occur while mentorship. Some mentors might be irresponsible in their relations
with mentee, taking advantage of him or her or ignore trainee, omitting fulfilling
their special obligation to foster the intellectual development and
independence of the next generation of scientists. The mentor-trainee
relationship can be abused in many ways also as a result of the inherent
imbalance of power. The success of the process depends both on
the mentor’s and the mentee’s personal commitment.
Mentoring is one of the primary means for one generation of scientists
to pass their knowledge and ethics of their profession to future generations.
References:
1.
Модзалевский Л.Н. Очерк истории воспитания и обучения с
древнейших до наших времен [Текст] : учеб.
пособие для вузов и сред. спец. учеб. заведений. Часть первая / Научная редакция, вступительная статья,
предметный указатель М.В.Захарченко. (Серия “ Библиотека русской педагогики ”)
– СПб. : Алетейя, 2000г. – 429с.
2. Cusanovich, M., Gilliland, M. Mentoring: The Faculty-Graduate Student
Relationship // CGS Communicator, May-June 1991.
3. Farhan M. Strategic Human Resource Development. Mentoring.
// http://www.scribd.com/doc/3838619/Mentoring
4. Lipschutz S. S.
Enhancing Success in Doctoral Education: From Policy to Practice // New Directions for Institutional Research,
80 - San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993.
5. Mentoring
University Students. Mellon Academic
Mentoring Support Project // http://cet.usc.edu/resources/teaching_learning/docs/mentorstudents.pdf
6. Zuckerman H. Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the
United States - New Jersey: Transaction
Publishers, 1996. – 335 p.