<\/p>\nI continue to be fascinated with how people are enamored with the idea of mentoring. It seems to have a romantic hold on people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s imagination. I recently received an e-mail from a friend who is a college program director. She was asking some questions about a program for college students being created at her college. The program design looked pretty good, though it included a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mentoring\u00e2\u20ac\u009d component. I sighed and cautioned my friend about the tendency to misapply \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mentoring.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Much of what people do under the rubric of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mentoring\u00e2\u20ac\u009d isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t appropriate to their goals, aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t applicable to their audience, ignores the significance of context, and isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t designed to be mentoring at all.<\/p>\n
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I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m always amused at how passionately people defend what they are calling \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mentoring\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when it is, in fact and practice, something else (training, apprenticeships, coaching, internships, modeling, discipleship, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153spiritual friendships,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or other \u00e2\u20ac\u0153learning relationships\u00e2\u20ac\u009d). Ultimately I just give up and say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You can call it mentoring if you want—I really don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care what you call it. Just be careful that you aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t convincing people that they are mentoring, or being mentored, when they are not. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unfair.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Here are the dynamics behind why I think this is important: <\/p>\n
Additionally, in any helping relationship three interrelated dynamics are at play: (1) Reciprical bounded relationships, (2) the intended (and unintended and null) functional goals of the relationship, and (3) the situated context that defines, facilitates, or inhibits the first two. For those reasons I tend to define mentoring narrowly in order to respect the nature of the practice. To do otherwise is to risk being ineffective or confusing one approach for another (in other words, doing one thing while actually doing another). Strictly speaking, I define mentoring as: Mentoring is a vocational relationship that takes place in the context of the situated practice of the vocation. Mentoring is about introducing someone into a vocation.<\/i> <\/p>\n
Mentoring has these characteristics:<\/p>\n
Therefore, it is not appropriate to define something like parenting as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153vocation\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and then create a program that provides elder \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mentors\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to young parents. And, certainly, then, you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mentor\u00e2\u20ac\u009d children.<\/p>\n
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These concepts about the nature of mentoring challenges the misguided notion that seminaries can provide \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mentoring\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to future clergy as part of their educational experience. More specifically, it is a mistake to believe that seminary professors whose profession and vocation is the academic classroom and whose focus of interest is a field of study (preaching, Biblical studies, and even practical theology) can be mentors to clergy who will serve in congregations. For example, when I was a congregational educator I could be a mentor to someone wanting to be a congregational educator. But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m eight years removed from that situated vocational context. So, even though I teach in the field of congregational Christian education I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be a mentor to someone who wants to be a congregational educator, but I can be a good mentor to someone who wants to be a seminary professor in the field of education, or perhaps wants to be an educator. <\/p>\n
That does not mean that my teaching relationship cannot be helpful to future clergy or educational educators. I can be teacher, coach, model, trainer, etc. But I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fool myself into thinking I can be a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mentor\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to someone entering vocational ministry. For one thing, the situated learning context in which I work dictates a bounded relationship. As long as the student is in seminary I will always be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153teacher\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and he or she always \u00e2\u20ac\u0153student.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Unlike the mentoring relationship which assumes that at one point the person being mentored will achieve a level of competence and mastery and will outgrow the mentor-mentee relationship, as long as the student remains in seminary he or she will always be a novice. (The power of this dynamic can be seen in the inability of alumni who, years later, still cannot bring themselves to call me anything other than \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dr. Galindo.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d). <\/p>\n
Nor will I be unfair by accepting an invitation from a student who wants me to be a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mentor\u00e2\u20ac\u009d if they are entering congregational ministry. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll find their mentor in the context of their vocational setting. There is that old saying, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Seminarians are not ready to learn the things I think they really<\/i> need to know and understand about ministry while they are in seminary. They will learn those important things when they need to learn them in the situated context of their vocational practice of ministry. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“You can’t plant insight into the unmotivated.” M. Bowen<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 2007, Israel Galindo. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I continue to be fascinated with how people are enamored with the idea of mentoring. It seems to have a romantic hold on people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s imagination. I recently received an e-mail from a friend who is a college program director. She … Continue reading