by Chu Chin Kwok

Created on: December 07, 2009

When a freshly trained teacher starts teaching in schools, he or she needs more than a burning desire to teach to survive. Equipped with good knowledge but with little exposure to actual teaching, the beginning teacher still faces a daunting task as he/she enters classroom before many pairs of unfamiliar eyes. One of the ways the novice teacher could be helped to overcome initial difficulties is through the system of mentoring, whereby usually a senior member of the academic staff is made a teacher mentor to the teaching rookie. Ideally a teacher mentor should be able to teach the new teacher the ropes - the tricks of the trade, which is education of course - and from time to time to provide some timely advice and guidance should the mentee faces apparently insurmountable obstacles.

I propose that for a mentor system to work, the following do's and don'ts should be adhered to by the two parties:

DOs:

1. The mentor and mentee must show mutual respect for each other, notwithstanding the fact that the mentor may be a senior faculty with decades of teaching experience and possessing wide knowledge in the relevant fields;

2. The mentor must always act professionally when giving advice and help to the novice teacher mentee;

3. The mentor must learn to be a good listener whereas the mentee has to be an active player in the mentor-mentee relationship; the novice teacher should be pro-active in seeking solutions to his/her problems before approaching the mentor for advice and counsel;

4. As far as necessary what transpires between the mentor and the mentee with regards to teaching should not be divulged to third parties unless both parties acquiesce to such disclosure - to prevent a situation of potential conflict of interest and other possibilities of dispute;

5. The mentor has to learn to accept the ways of the mentee - including the idiosyncrasies, unique or different ways of approaching a teaching situation etc and not to force the mentor's opinion onto the mentee;

6. The teacher mentor should be willing to allow and welcome the mentee to attend classes the mentor teaches to observe how class lessons are being delivered; how class management is being effected and how the experiences of the mentor come in handy to overcome potentially difficult class-room situations.

7. Likewise, the novice teacher should take the initiative to invite his/her mentor to come to observe him/her as and when necessary, especially if the mentor and mentee are teaching more or less

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