Sarah,

Taxonomies ... identities ... what my questions are stirring up

I can't say I know the literature to attempt an answer to 'Are there 
mentoring taxonomies already?'

I can throw into the pot however, at least three analyses I have found 
useful.

One levels of analysis is as in logical levels of learning as presented by 
Gregory Bateson, in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, where levels go from zero 
to three, but hypothetically beyond three, and work a bit like (I do have 
some background in basic physics) position (Location and zero velocity), 
movement (change of location in time = velocity), acceleration (change in 
location by change in velocity in time).  Consequently, I see learning as 
something that generates change, and learning to change is 'second-order', 
and involves learning about learning, something others call metacognition. 
By extension there is also learning about learning to change, a third order, 
and so on.  As Bateson admits, what it looks like, on the ground, in some 
person's practice, can be hard to enunciate, let alone achieve on a regular 
day to day basis.

Also, John Heron, in The Complete Facilitator's Handbook, speaks of levels 
of decisions about learning, and facilitating learning.  He names three: 
Direction (facilitator decides); Negotiation (facilitator negotiates with 
learner to decide); and Delegation (learner decides), and a fourth level 
where the facilitator decides which of these three levels is appropriate to 
the learning involved.  Heron suggests that this sort of level movement can 
keep on going in an infiniter regress of deferred decision making, but in 
the end someone acts unilaterally, autonomously at some level, or we all 
become neurotic or go mad.

As for the complexity that is person, well you can pick and choose.  There 
are nearly as many models as there are people!   The one I use to talk with 
people about relationship and mutual comprehension and its limits, is the 
Johari window: the you you know and can disclose, the you you are disclosing 
in an interaction, the you that another sees, but which is blind to you, and 
the you that is unknown to you and to other.  In this model, you can choose 
to disclose material from what you know and can disclose.  When that 
happens, more of you is 'open' to the other party and they can see more of 
you that is blind to you.  If they feedback to you that which they see and 
which is blind to you, and you can accept that (usually we can't and take 
offence) then some of the unknown to you becomes known and now available for 
self-initiated disclosure.

Happy hunting and thinking about how/what you want to convey to help 
understand and talk about what is going on in the mentoring relationship and 
exchange!

This is about the point where I remember that I never really completely 
understood-to-mastery the mathematics of matrices; where I wonder why many 
of our models are three dimensional at most (and the rubrics cube puzzle); 
and how, if I were a more effective visual artist I might be able to use 
colour in some three dimensional construction that was moving through space 
at acceleration to convey ...  But then again, understanding, at a certain 
level, physics, the very thing that is involved in that science is the 
reduction to single variables, one at a time, and everything else is 
approximations and probabilities, but strong enough to build space stations 
successfully.

Dianne


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sarah Fletcher" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2008 8:01 AM
Subject: Re: Many coaches have coach supervisors. Might mentors benefit from 
having supervisors too?


Hi Dianne,

Thinking about questions you have posed me and the insights you have offered
into the work of Montessori has elicited a notion of creating a taxonomy of
'identities' in mentoring that I have received, practiced and observed. Are
there mentoring taxonomies already?

In areflexive gaze observing myself-as-mentor and, to some extent,
myself-as-mentee I've felt a need for a framework that might assist me to
express what I am perceiving.
Your questions as intervention assist me to plan my route through. It is
clarifying now.

Understanding what mentoring is about is assisted by my reading of Harre's
The Singular Self. he sees the idea of the self as a unity as a useful
fiction and identifies three selves: Self One: is the point of view from
which 'I' perceive the material environment and act on it; Self Two: the
shifting totality of personal characteristics that make up 'myself' and Self
Three: the totalities of personal impressions that I make on other people.
A mentor might help my reflexive understanding in each of these arenas but
not necessarily in every one.
A mentor can assist me to see aspects of my practice that I could not
otherwise perceive.

I have been videoing my practice - and others have videoed my practice - for
many years. At this point in time I am being mentored in relation to
web-based work I am completing as a presentation to the Teacher Learning
Academy. Research mentoring is a key element.

More soon!

Sarah