Mentoring.  When the concept of mentoring comes to you as an image, what do you see?  For some it might be the traditional image of an older gentleman with an arm around a younger one saying something like, “When I was your age….” 
 Yet the Talmud has a story about how this vision might look slightly different.

For our Rabbis taught: One's Rav (rabbi) is defined as the individual who has taught him "wisdom", and not the one who has taught him the Written and Oral Torah. This is Rabbi Meir's opinion.  Rabbi Yehuda said: Whoever has taught him most of his wisdom.
Rabbi Yossi said: Even if he did no more than make his eyes light up from an explanation of single selection from the Oral Torah--he is still considered to be his Rav."
Bava Metzia 33a
 
Today’s mentoring image looks like that of the Ravs above. Wisdom can come to us in many ways and through many channels.  A mentor might look like a peer or a colleague with just a few more years at the school than the mentee. And while the mentor’s “wisdom” could look like the traditional advice and expertise, that “wisdom” might also quite different and come in the form of questions and quiet.

Hebrew Union College’s Day School Leadership for Teaching Program (DeLeT), vision of mentoring often times looks much more like a collaboration or a coaching session than a conventional consultative visit.

Like most Jewish Day Schools, the schools with which we work select and cultivate teachers who can adapt and flex, who are resourceful and savvy.  So a mentor’s job in these ever-changing and fast-paced places is to support new teachers as they grow to become self-directed.   DeLeT cultivates mentor skills that will help the new teacher find the wisdom within.

To do this type of mentoring work, DeLeT builds the capacity of its mentors in the following 10 ways. 

1. The ability to create trust  - The micro-messages a mentor sends with his/her body language and tone of voice send the message that he or she is either intimidating or approachable.  Mentors need to think about how they might be perceived and then behave in ways that create a secure feeling between themselves and others.  
2. The ability to do ‘set asides’  – While the expertise a mentor has is a gift to the mentee, too much sharing of that knowledge at the wrong times can get in the way of the mentee development. Mentors need to watch out for how their expertise comes out - in the form of solutions, helpful stories and curious questions. 
3. The ability to paraphrase – A mentor’s ability to listen and capture the feelings of the new teacher, to empathize, and to mirror back to the mentee that she is seen helps the new teacher know that someone “gets it.” 
4. The ability to pause – Less is often times more. Simply by offering a space for in which the new teacher can think and as Nelle Mortan says, “hear [himself] into speech” is a great gift.
5. The ability to ask questions – We are a people who respect and encourage the asking of questions and know how to do so well. Keeping questions open-ended in their phrasing can ease a new teacher’s mind as she is trying to solve her own problems.  “What might you do tomorrow?”   “What are your hunches about what the student might be going through?”  Asking questions that don’t pin a new teacher down, but instead free them up, is an essential mentoring skill.
6. The ability to be self-reflective – Mentors themselves need to be extraordinarily self-aware.  Aware of one’s biases and knowing one’s preferences gives the mentor the consciousness to not just jump to conclusions, but instead be curious and focused on what might be best for the mentee.
7. The ability to give thoughtful suggestions – As said above, mentors need to know there are many ways to get to the same result. Offering several perspectives or offering observations and then having the mentee come to her own conclusions is a good way to support a new colleague in finding her own footing.
8. The ability to have ‘hard’ conversations – One hat a mentor wears is that of “political consultant”.  When the mentee isn’t aware of cultural norms, appropriate instructional strategies or communication etiquette, the mentor needs to share honestly with the mentee.  Learning how to share difficult information is essential for both the growth of the mentor and the mentee.
9. The ability to work with different generational needs – More and more we see generational conflicts cropping up in our schools.  Older colleagues are shocked by the informality of the younger ones.  Younger ones are finding the school moving too slowly with change. As the norms of “how to do things around here” aren’t always easily seen by a new teacher, a mentor’s understanding the motivations and norms of each generation, Boomers, Xers, and Millennials, will be important as she assists the mentee on his career path at the school.
10. The ability to work with adult learning needs  – Adults strive to look competent, work best with hands-on learning and thrive in learning situations with strong relevancy to their work.  Knowing about these and other adult learning needs, the phases of new teacher development, and how one grows into the identity of teaching professional are foundational to a mentor’s practice.

Teaching is so complex that our highest teaching and learning priorities can get lost in the mix. Mentors, through their skilled and nuanced work, hold the focus on the most important goals for their mentees and their students.  It is a mitzvah to do the work of a mentor, and a mentor’s skill set is one worthy of study.