Week Nine

How is Mentoring Adults Different from Teaching Children?

One of the main differences that comes to mind between mentoring adults and teaching children is life experiences. The adult learner is motivated by life experiences because they have lived through a lot of circumstances that influences their options. "Common sense tells us that life experience greatly influences our motivation, our ability to learn, and the attention we choose to give learning." (Papa, p. 93) Adults who participate in a mentorship have mostly likely chosen to do so and therefor have a high interest in learning.

Children, on the other hand, feel that they are being forced to learn and therefor do not always enjoy school. While attending school, there is not a single focus. Students are required to meet certain graduation requirements set by the school district, thus not able to only focus on subjects they feel passionate about.  Children also have not had a lot of exposure to life experiences so it is not know what their main interests are yet.

All teachers participate in a mentorship before they can be a teacher. This mentorship is structured in a way that is highly motivating for the mentee and of high interest. This mentorship lasts for one or two years and then the teacher is "set free". I would argue that it is important to find a person at the school you work "who can challenge you, advise you and celebrate you, helps you embrace being reflective and encourages you to take risks" (Wolpert-Gawron) not matter how much of a veteran teacher you are. I am lucky to have one of those people in the room next to me at my school. We talk daily about instructional materials, students and life. She is a great sounding board and I am as well for her.

At my school, some of the students participate in a mentorship with students from the elementary school when they sign up for a Spanish and art class. This is not a requirement, simply something that teachers have set up.  It is very interesting to see how much work these students do in preparing the lessons that they are going to teach and to see the interactions with the younger students. We also have an internship class, where students are paired up with a business in our community and work with them for a semester. This is a new class at our school and I hope that it can be developed into something really great for our students.

I have never had a student teacher in my classroom, but I can image that it is a lot of work. I also worry about the forced pairing and how well we would get along. Despite this, I would welcome any new teacher help, as I know many teachers have helped me along the way. "Mentoring is considered the most complete human skill to acquire immediately followed by negotiating and instructing." (Papa, pg. 100) I know that I would be rewarded immensely while working with a student teacher.

Working with adults and students definitely have their differences but both can be very rewarding. Most of my experience only comes with working with students, and this is where I feel more comfortable.



Papa, Rosemary. Technology Leadership for School Improvement. SAGE Publications, Inc, 2011.

Wolpert-Gawron, Heather. “Every Teacher Needs a Mentor.” Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation, 27 Mar. 2018, www.edutopia.org/article/every-teacher-needs-mentor.