7 Keys: #2 - Mentors, Not Professors

Montessori called an adult who worked with the children in her schools a "directress", rather than a teacher.  ("Directress" probably sounds better in Italian.)  Anyway, she said that their job was not to teach the children, but to direct, or guide, them to activities beneficial to their individual development.

Likewise, in TJEd, we are called to be mentors, rather than "professors" or teachers.  This is not to disparage professional teachers or professors, but to make a distinction between teaching and mentoring.  Teaching involves telling the students what they need to know and grading them, or rewarding/punishing in some other way.  Mentoring, on the other hand, involves getting to know each student personally - their interests, talents, goals, etc. - and helping him/her to develop and carry out a plan to achieve those goals.

As a homeschool mom, I feel like I know my students pretty well.  We do spend a lot of time together, after all, and because of my Montessori training I have always observed them to see what they are interested in and would watch/listen to what they pretended to be and do in their fantasy play.  It seemed so simple 7-10 years ago.  It was fun to think, "Oh, Swimmah loves dinosaurs, let's get some books from the library and we can also go to the museum of natural history."  Or: "Turtlegirl loves to paint, let's read that picture book about Jackson Pollock I saw at the library and then set up a big sheet of paper in the back yard and let her have at it!"

Now it's all starting to seem so serious.  Not that I think they need to decide at 15 and 13 what they want to do with the rest of their lives, but adulthood is just a few short (to me, not them) years away.  I do know that there's still time for exploration, but as I said, it just seems more serious now.

So I have been reading books like The Student Whisperer to help me be a better mentor.  Never having had a formal mentor myself, I'm learning on the job.  To a certain extent, it's an expansion of what I have always done, but I have been trying to involve them in the process more, to get and keep a dialogue going.  (Easier said than done - neither of them are the most forthcoming of youngsters.  No idea where they got that from...)

Mainly it comes down to the homeschooling advice I have read/heard countless times from various sources: focus on the relationship first.  When your relationship is healthy and nurturing, the learning comes much easily and effectively.