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
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