Interesting comment, Sarah, about language, and how we attend to it, and 
what it conveys in our usage ...

I am inclined to agree with you, vis-a-vis the 'passion' and need in 
teaching ... at a first point of contact, using Maria Montessori's model*, 
it relates to learning and communication  .. if, as a result of learning, we 
have 'news' - new understanding for ourselves, then, out of necessity/ 
altruism, we need to share it with others (communication) so that they can 
enjoy this new too.

Mutual understanding is a necessity of communication; my work in teaching, 
via coaching, or mentoring, or questioning, is about building the 
wherewithal for mutual understanding, where that is possible; it involves me 
making a journey to where you are, and well as inviting you on the journey 
to where I am; and in the process we tend to find out whether we have been 
the teacher or the learner, depending on how we understand the relative 
positions, and what we make of undertaking that journey.  One of the 
delights of teaching is learning, just as one of the delights of learning is 
having something to teach, and from the learning and attending to how we 
have learned perhaps being able to teach.

And notice Montessori's process includes the fundamentals of research - 
exploration (data collection), exploration out of orientation (lit review), 
order (data analysis), imagination (theorising), manipulation (actionable 
knowing), repetition (the replication criterion of science), precision, 
control of error (part of replication, part of refining theorising and by 
attending to evidence - grounding it in reality/empirical, essential for 
predictable manipulation), communication (reporting findings to the field 
for testing against other knowers' ways of knowing, data and analysis).   IE 
one of the ways we learn is by research/inquiry.

Dianne

*Maria Montessori's model as I know it:
"human beings have tendencies toward certain behaviours that help them 
fulfil their needs ...
exploration, orientation, order, imagination, manipulation, repetition, 
precision, control of error leading to perfection, and communication"

(via Lillard, PP (1996). Montessori today. NY: Schocken)
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sarah Fletcher" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 6:43 AM
Subject: Re: Many coaches have coach supervisors. Might mentors benefit from 
having supervisors too?


Hi Dianne

I am going to ask you to bear with me - just got home at after 9.00 pm as
the train from London was delayed and delayed and ... you got the picture -
and I am exhausted! Sorry!

I have been reflecting on your questions and I am looking forward to
responding very soon.

I was fascinated by this in your email earlier today. Would you like to
elucidate a little more?

.... then I somehow have to bring you, Sarah, from where you are, in your
understanding of this issue, to where I am in my understanding....

I'm interested by 'have to' - it seems to resonate with not just a passion
to but my 'need to' teach, need to inform..? that I talked about in an
earlier email.  There's something about self actualisation (reference Maslow
and also Tillich - The Courage to be...' ) in here I would say,

Brain has simply crashed! Glass of wine assisting!

Best regards,

Sarah