Mentors in the Making

P/B • 216 pages
ISBN 9780807746356

Betty Achinstein and Steven Z. Athanases, Editors
Foreword by Ellen Moir

“Mentors in the Making makes a vital contribution to our profession… providing critical questions and a message of hope…. In this volume you will find new understandings about the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed by mentors and induction leaders who will transform a new generation of educators.”
—From the Foreword by Ellen Moir, Executive Director, The New Teacher Center, University of California, Santa Cruz

In response to a growing interest in mentoring and new teacher induction, the authors offer a unique view of developing quality mentors. Drawing on empirical research, practitioner action inquiry, and field-tested practices from induction programs, they explore effective mentoring in diverse educational contexts. With richly contextualized and thoughtfully analyzed excerpts from actual mentoring conversations and powerful examples of practice, the volume offers educators, researchers, and policymakers a reform-minded vision of the future of mentoring. Challenging conventional wisdom—that it is sufficient to identify successful teachers and send them out to mentor others—this essential resource:

• Argues that mentors are not born, but developed through conscious, deliberate, ongoing learning.
• Provides a needed link between research and practice in the field of new teacher mentoring, to define a knowledge base for effective mentoring.
• Documents induction and mentoring practices that focus new teachers on individual learners, equity-oriented curriculum and pedagogy, and the educator’s role in reforming school culture.
• Highlights problems and complexities of enacting mentor knowledge and learning in diverse contexts.