Join the Great Debate! "teaching" or "mentoring"?

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Permalink Reply by Helena Wu on April 7, 2009 at 2:39pm

I say keep mentor. A mentor can teach a teacher may not be a true mentor. Mentoring is a special way of teaching, deeper.

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Permalink Reply by David Morimoto on April 7, 2009 at 3:23pm

teach Look up teach at Dictionary.com
O.E. tæcan (past tense and pp. tæhte) "to show, point out," also "to give instruction," from P.Gmc. *taikijanan (cf. O.H.G. zihan, Ger. zeihen "to accuse," Goth. ga-teihan "to announce"), from PIE *deik- "to show, point out" (see diction). Related to O.E. tacen, tacn "sign, mark" (see token). O.E. tæcan had more usually a sense of "show, declare, warn, persuade" (cf. Ger. zeigen "to show," from the same root); while the O.E. word for "to teach, instruct, guide" was more commonly læran, source of modern learn and lore. Teacher "one who teaches" emerged c.1300; it was used earlier in a sense of "index finger" (c.1290).
mentor Look up mentor at Dictionary.com
"wise advisor," 1750, from Gk. Mentor, character in the "Odyssey," friend of Odysseus, adviser of Telemachus (often actually Athene in disguise), perhaps ult. meaning "adviser," since the name appears to be an agent noun of mentos "intent, purpose, spirit, passion" from PIE *mon-eyo- (cf. Skt. man-tar- "one who thinks," L. mon-i-tor "one who admonishes"), causative form of base *men- "to think" (see mental).

from http://www.etymolgy.online

'Teach' has older roots, even older than those for 'mental'. Words grow in language trees, wilderness like. And of course, wilderness is older than words. We point things out to others that we have learned from our mentor - wilderness (which, larger than us and encompassing us, can only advise).

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Permalink Reply by Rees Maxwell on April 7, 2009 at 4:22pm

This is a great topic of discussion. Here are my thoughts on it:

Teaching vs Mentoring

Call it Mentoring and folks who aren't 'in the know' on what that means may only consider it to be what people do who aren't trained to be a teacher. Like a good person who takes a little brother or sister under their wing, and is a 'mentor' to them, though they may not have any teaching background nor any mentoring background either .. are just a good person who is doing what they can for another.

Call it Teaching and folks who are dissatisfied with mainstream models of teaching might easily gloss over the unique nature of how you 'teach'.

It is interesting that Teach is from the Middle English 'techen' which means to show, instruct, and from the Old English tǣċan, from Germanic origin. It is related to tācn which means 'sign' or token. Merriam-Webster defines it as follows:
Date: before 12th century
transitive verb
1 a: to cause to know something b: to cause to know how c: to accustom to some action or attitude d: to cause to know the disagreeable consequences of some action
2: to guide the studies of
3: to impart the knowledge of
4 a: to instruct by precept, example, or experience b: to make known and accepted
5: to conduct instruction regularly in

So it looks like a Teacher is the cause of the student learning .. the teacher imparts the knowledge. And imagine swapping the sentance 'I'll teach you to come home late' with 'I'll mentor you in coming home late' and notice the different meaning. Webster also says a teacher can be a guide.

Now, contrast that with what Webster says about Mentor:
Etymology: Latin, from Greek Mentōr
Date: 1616
1 capitalized : a friend of Odysseus entrusted with the education of Odysseus' son Telemachus
2 a: a trusted counselor or guide b: tutor, coach

So it looks like a Mentor is someone who is a trusted counselor or guide, as opposed to that who imparts knowledge. It is as if the Teacher says "This is This and that's the way it is" and a mentor says, "Try turning over that rock or looking in that cave over there... you're bound to get closer to your answer." At least, that's how I see it.

Wiktionary.com (the lexical companion to Wikipedia) goes further when describing 'tutor':
Etymology: From French mentor from Ancient Greek Μέντωρ (Mentōr, “Mentor”), a mythological character in the Odyssey.
Noun
mentor (plural mentors)
A wise and trusted counselor or teacher

They stress 'wise' ... though they also use both terms: counselor and teacher.

So I say, Mix It Up!
Stress 'Mentoring' and make sure you define your use of that term very well, and in a few places. But then as you talk about what you do, toss 'teach' in there so that people don't get the impression that you live on your own planet which doesn't contain teachers. The term 'teach' is many centuries older than 'mentor' so it is a very ingrained concept. Even if you are speaking of a specific definition of 'Mentoring,' you can still speak of teaching through mentoring .. and more generally, you can go back and forth between mentoring and teaching where appropriate. I'm of the impression that if you make a big, well, impression on folks at the beginning of the book that 'mentoring' means xyz and when you speak of teaching kids you mean teaching them through the 'mentoring model' that you've specified, then you can use the term 'teaching' often because it is a natural term to use. You might want to find ways to pepper the book with more examples of the difference of how it would look to 'teach' a particular skill vs. how it would look to 'mentor' someone in that same skill, etc. That can help to bring the new idea home for folks.

Let's just make sure we don't alienate anyone who considers themselves a 'teacher' in this process of educating people about different ways of assisting people in learning. In fact, when I talk about 'mentoring' with people, I tell them that I'm making a distinction between two different ways of teaching and calling one of them 'Teaching' and the other 'Mentoring' ... when really the term 'Teacher' is broad enough to encompass both, but I want to point out two different ways of assisting people in their learning journey. I then describe how both of these distinctions serve important jobs, and have their places in education. I give an example of my young child wanting to learn more about what plants are edible and heading into an area thick with poison oak -- direct instruction here is important! I'm not going to let 'natural consequences' play out, nor am I going to tell them to "go talk to the mice" .. I'm going to halt them in their tracks and point out a serious hazard. I'm going to label the hazard and tell them what consequences they could experience and then lead them into identifying poison oak and a greater discussion about it using various 'mentoring' techniques until that learning opportunity closes and they need to move on to continue their learning.

Hmm! This is a great topic! Thanks for sharing it with us -- inviting me to investigate my own ideas further!

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Permalink Reply by David Morimoto on April 7, 2009 at 4:31pm

Calling it teaching will assist in more easily integrating wilderness teaching and learning (and mentoring) into the mainstream curriculum. Mixing it up is good.

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Permalink Reply by Helena Wu on April 7, 2009 at 5:50pm

I like your ideas for mixing it up but with clear definitions.

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Permalink Reply by Wendolyn Ann Winguth Bird on April 7, 2009 at 5:39pm

There is no doubt in my mind and heart that it would be GREAT if you scraped the word Teach, in the new coyotes guide and, through on going repetition and description guided the readers into a more expanded view of how to share with our children. The word teach, at this point in time seems too limited and far to engrained in the modern mind to mean something very different than what Coyotes guide wishes to invite. I am not convinced Ellen that it could be changed sufficiently.

How wonderful it is that you have this forum and that you are enlisting the thoughts of others in this debate that you, Jon and Evan are playing with.
Thank you for this.
Wendolyn Bird

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Permalink Reply by Charlie Davis on April 7, 2009 at 6:00pm

Coyote mentoring is certainly a type of teaching, but I think you have to be careful and deliberate when you refer to it as ‘teaching’. If new readers only register their understanding of the word ‘teaching’ (which they will) you risk generating confusion about what Coyote mentoring is, if for no other reason than much of the public has no idea what teaching is, but has definite opinions about it. If you really believe what you are promoting in Coyote mentoring is different, then don’t call it something that the general public already believes means something else. If you are trying to change the myths of culture, don’t purposefully become lost in it by labeling your movement with a word with so many meanings, interpretations, values, and baggage as ‘teaching’. Here I would defer to the wisdom of R. Buckmeister Fuller who would answer this way “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” In this case what appears new is what has been forgotten.

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Permalink Reply by Bruce Carron on April 7, 2009 at 9:42pm

There have been some great insights here. For me it is simple - Nature is the teacher, I am the mentor/guide. For example, when a "student" is "distracted" by something in Nature - that becomes the "lesson". Whatever I was saying is likely secondary to the experience that Nature is wanting to teach.

When i am asked what work i do, I reply " I am a mentor". The answer is decripitive yet vague in that it requires further explanation. If i replied " I am a teacher", it would usually be assumed that i am a school teacher. And nothing wrong with that except that i am not a school teacher :)

So the question could be reframed - Which word is a more powerful form of creating mystery, inspiration and engagement - teaching or mentoring? For me, teaching is too known; mentoring invokes the unknown.

Bruce

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Permalink Reply by Dirk Bayer on April 7, 2009 at 11:03pm

teaching is helping somebody to get to know something.
I like the word in this context. It widens the definition of teaching and brings it back to what it was in former times.
greetings and blessings
Dirk

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Permalink Reply by Chris Laliberte on April 8, 2009 at 11:51am

I love the responses to this question so far. Rees, your reflections were especially helpful for me.

The several comments on the older roots of these words are really helpful, in my opinion, even if they don't directly address the specific concern in the debate over what the terms "mentor" and "teacher" evoke for people currently. So, I want to offer the roots of two more words:

Education, from the Latin educare: "Lead it out"

Instruction, from the Latin in-struere: "Put it in"

Ok, that's a little simplified, but I think it's actually pretty accurate.

So, this points to two very different processes: "Leading it out" is my favorite idea in the world. What "it" is probably varies for all of us, but I'd guess we can all agree on several things that Coyote Mentoring is definitely trying to "Lead out" of our students or pupils:
-Knowledge. People know a whole lot more than they think they know. Help us to recognize what we know, and share it so we are all helping each other learn.
-Curiosity. When the student is motivated by a genuine, internal curiosity and wonder, that's all it takes for great learning to happen. Just feed it and get out of the way.
-Genius. I think that the "Natural Gift" principle is an essential part of Coyote Mentoring. I think of this principle as the recognition of a Genius in every person--each person (maybe the soul of each person) has a unique gift or contribution to bring to the world, to their community, that the world NEEDS. Part of the job of the community is to discover and recognize what that gift is in each person, and find a way for that gift to be offered.

"Put it in" and instruction evokes a whole different process, for me. This is the classic transfer of information. There are lots of tried-and-true methods for effectively putting knowledge, skills, even values and attitudes into students, and we're also rediscovering lots of new ones. But I see this as a fundamentally different approach, requiring a very different set of skills, from "leading it out."

I think that a large part of the debate around the use of terms like teacher and mentor actually involve a lack of clarity about these two processes (education and instruction). I hope we can all agree that BOTH of these dynamics are crucial and important. I do think we have different cultural history with the two dynamics, which is important to recognize.

Regarding “leading it out” or true education, I think that we in the modern age are really unfamiliar with this dynamic. As a culture, we’ve inherited the “tabula rasa” or “blank slate” paradigm and so we don’t welcome a new child into the world with the big question “what gift are they bringing?” We think “A boy! Oh, I want him to be a doctor!” We don’t approach them with the careful eye to see who they are going to be, what is going to emerge out of them, how do they carry exactly the thing that we and the world need right now. So, there’s a “problem” of ignorance and neglect in this arena. As a result, Coyote Mentoring, which places a big emphasis on this dynamic, feels so fresh and exciting! We sense that this is what’s missing and what’s desperately needed, so we like to emphasize it.

Our relationship with “putting it in” or instruction is a completely different story. We’ve probably all had WAY TOO MUCH stuff jammed down our throats in really ineffective ways. Even though this is the primary (maybe only) dynamic that gets emphasized in school today, we still stink at it, and don’t set ourselves up for success in how we structure our educational system. So, in regard to our experience with instruction, we actually have a lot of baggage, an experience of lousy instruction that we confuse with the process of instruction in general. Our problem isn’t ignorance or unfamiliarity as it is with “leading it out,” it’s a problem of scar tissue around wounds suffered under poor and misguided “putting it in.” We desperately need to acknowledge our wounds around this, and understandably our impulse is to condemn the whole thing and have nothing to do with it.

But I don’t think the solution is to lump all the poor instruction stuff into the term “teaching” and banish it, reclaiming all the good stuff (both educare and instruare) with a new term “mentoring.”

I think we all know that a good “Coyote Mentor” leads out curiosity, the soul of a student, and also puts in important information in all kinds of ways, from sneaky set-ups of teachable moments, to directly telling people something. So in that context, I think that it would work fine to talk about "mentoring" and "teaching" as verbs, and to define them fairly strictly along certain lines: mentoring is about "leading it out" and teaching is about "putting it in." Thus a Coyote Mentor needs to be good at both mentoring and teaching.

I also think that part of the problem in the debate is in trying to interface with our current system. We need to talk about Vocations and Job Descriptions. The problem is that I don’t think the “leading it out” dynamic can be part of a job the way “putting it in” can. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to hire someone as an Instructor and expect them to be able to effectively “put in” a certain curriculum to any student who comes into their program. But the “lead it out” is a totally different thing, in that, as far as I’m concerned, the soul doesn’t conform to our boxes and definitions. I might know every trick in the book, be a perfectly trained “Mentor” equipped with all the knowledge and skill to “lead out” the gift of any soul (yeah, right!), but if that soul doesn’t choose to trust me, doesn’t “resonate” with me, no amount of effort on my part will make any difference. The soul knows what, and who, it needs.

So, using the language of ‘teach’ meaning “put in,” and ‘mentor’ meaning “lead out,” I think Coyote Mentoring is a training that prepares anyone to be able to effectively teach any student they come across, given suitable resources and context. It also prepares them to be available and able to respond to students who chose to approach them for mentoring.

So when we talk about a teacher in a classroom, I think the same holds true: our Coyote Mentoring training is about helping them be truly effective in teaching their students their curricular objectives, and also helping them to learn to cultivate an environment, a context, and a culture that calls the souls of their students forth, and to be available as a mentor for those students who respond to that invitation.

So I think we need to retain the word “Teaching,” as I think it most appropriately describes the “job” we will find ourselves in.

I also think we need to be crystal clear and up front about the fact that we are reclaiming or re-defining what Teaching means in at least two crucial ways:
-We are adding in this notion of “leading it out,” tending to the emerging soul of the student (actually, we are adding this component back in, it used to be there even in our western traditions if we go back to Classical Greece).
-We are offering highly effective alternative models for much more effective instruction, in large part by pointing to the structure and context for learning, and how awful the current model of isolating large groups of kids in a classroom with one teacher for years on end is for effective “putting in” of important information. We are also championing a re-evaluation of what information and skills are really the important ones that we should be “putting in,” namely ecological knowledge and expanded awareness capacity.

So I think we should say, and say again and again—“you probably don’t really understand what we mean when we say ‘teaching’ yet.” Of course, if we jettison “teaching” and just use the word “mentoring,” we’ll have to do the same thing.

Lastly, for you nature geeks, go look up the origins of the word “learn.” One dictionary I found traces it back to old Germanic “leis” for Track, as in to follow the track of an animal. Go figure!

Cheers,
Chris

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Permalink Reply by Mary Higham on April 10, 2009 at 6:17pm

To draw the attention of a “Teacher” unaware of Coyote Mentoring using the term ‘teach/teaching’ is very…well…coyote…now isn’t it?

Please don’t over think things. The book’s inspiration and motivation is clear, changes in thinking will come. One can not engage and apply this book without fundamentally changing the way they think about teaching….mentoring! This book is a guide and inspiration to mentors, it is a life changing experience to the ‘teachers’ who pick it up thinking they will get some great ‘teaching’ ideas. Trust me, ‘teach’ or ‘mentor’, they will all be mentors by the last page.

I vote use both. I really respect a mentor that can teach me a few things, I am still ‘learning’ from them…

Who would strictly judge these words with so much meaning anyway? Would it be helpful for a ‘mentor’ to judge the word ‘teach’ so harshly as to strip it from their vocabulary? Relax, breath and enjoy the spring and all this time of year has to TEACH us!

Mary

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Permalink Reply by Ellen Haas on April 13, 2009 at 4:44am

Thanks Mary, for your support of my position, and for your clarity in expressing it. I love your saying that using the word teach to teach them to mentor is "very coyote." -- Ellen

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