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Dear Tadashi, (Dear All)

Thank you so much for responding to my question in such a thought-provoking way.  I realised that business coaches see mentoring as a sub-set of mentoring when I ran a programme for the LifeLong Learning Division at the University of Bath in Swindon. I have also noticed this when I examine the MA dissertations from the Business School at Oxford Brookes University.  Perhaps this is because (until relatively recently) business was more geared to outcomes and skills than the majority of schools perceived themselves as being. Now we have league tables. which haven't always existed (!), schools have become more outcome focused and as a result have adopted skills coaching and relegated mentoring to supporting students who have learning difficulties and initial teacher training and induction.

When I trained to become a school-based mentor under the Licensed Teacher Scheme in Bedfordshire, my mentor was Mike Berrill - he wrote a brilliant article entitled ITE at the Crossroads, which was published in the Cambridge Journal of Education (I'll find you the reference and circulate it). Mike used Eric Berne's concept of transactional analysis to help us understand (as novice mentors) that we need to operate in all 3 dimensions to engage effectively with mentees; as adult, as parent and as child.  There is no one superior state - we need to be able to develop ways to relate across all three as the parent takes care of others, the adult stands back and can analyse the big picture and the child needs to play. (I'd be lost without the child bit as I experiment with using the KEEP toolkit templates for teacher researchers...) Well rounded professionals can operate in each of Berne's modes.

Now I see Transactional Analysis is one of the major models in the practice of coaching... I thoroughly recommend this site: http://www.businessballs.com/transactionalanalysis.htm
the group at Swindon told me about it. (There are links to all sorts of coaching resources).

I wonder if it might be a useful model to consider for supporting teachers in kounai ken or if it works better in some cultures than others? (I will be interested to hear others views too)

Warmest regards,

Sarah

Sarah Fletcher

Consultant Research Mentor

http://www.TeacherResearch.net
Convenor for BERA Mentoring and Coaching SIG
Details at http://www.bera.ac.uk

--- On Mon, 6/8/09, Tadashi　ASADA <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

From: Tadashi　ASADA <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: How mentoring and coaching might improve teachers' CPD in Japanese schools
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Monday, June 8, 2009, 2:04 PM

Dear Sarah,

>I'd like to know more about how you see mentoring and coaching
>complementing one another as a means to facilitating teachers' learning. Do
>you think the skills involved in mentoring and coaching are the same or
>distinct?

Thank you so much. Your question is difficult.
I think the notion of mentaring involes/contains that of coaching.
Generally, coaching focuses on the physical aspect, for example, coaching in
sports domain. In my paper coaching focuses on the teaching skills,
ie.questioning, how to writeing on the blackboard and so on. However, I
think the skills also means the cognitive skills, how to think, and coaching
in teacher education shoud deal with them. If so, coaching should not set
limits to the physical aspect.
On the other hand, the notion of mentoring is wide, and focuses on the human
development through the professional development.
I think the relationship between mentoring and coaching is similar to that
between education and training. Education and training have the same
terminal goal, but the learnig process is different. Training process is the
most effective route to the goal, so at least the trainer has the check
points to attain to the goal and the criteria of evaluation.  In education
the leaner tries and fails many times and finally attains to the goal. In
this process the educator support and sometimes instruct the learner and the
learner is brought out his potential by the educator's support. I think
training is necessary in educational process, but only training cannnot
serve the learner's development.

My answer to you question is that the skills involved in mentoring and
coaching are in part the same because mentoring involves coaching.
So I think we  need to reframe the skills in coaching from the view of
mentoring.


Warmest regards,
Tadashi