Mentoring!

The second of three steps to becoming an ‘enlightened teacher’

Once a teacher is fully invested, as described last week, she can begin to recognise that children are ‘stuck’ in many ways. ‘Stuck’ here means that the child has a perception – of their work, themselves, the world they are in – which is poorly formed or incorrect.  This misperception makes them feel threatened, ill at ease and unsafe.

Some examples might be, that they are unable to do their classwork and believe that they are just not good enough, the belief that adults are not to be trusted, low self-esteem making them prone to being bullied, not clear on where their talents lie, anxious about what will happen to them if I they are so useless, and so on.

‘Stuckness’ can also be in the other direction, so to speak, too confident, unwilling to try as things come easily, passivity rather than engagement with learning, and so on.

The mentoring teacher sees where each child is currently stuck and helps them to re-frame their perceptions so that a way forward to a better, safer state becomes apparent to the child and the child moves forward.

This approach is identical to what a good cognitive coach will do with an adult, help them to have an “aha!” moment – a re-framing of their perceptions – and an opportunity to act differently going forward to achieve a better outcome or future state.

The fact that cognitive coaching has spread widely in education is another indicator that we are close to being able to break out of the Behaviourist paradigm and provide the conditions for full student engagement.

Little by little adults are developing the skills.

John Corrigan is an expert in helping individuals to bring their whole of mind to their daily life and increase their effectiveness and the effectiveness of those around them. This expertise scales from the individual to the team to the organisation.  At the core of this work is the concept and practice of providing psychological safety and unfeigned lover through operating from the Constructive Mutualist rather than the Behaviourist paradigm.  Earlier blogs can be found here.