Mohammad Mosaddek Hussain :
Needless to say that Teaching is the noblest profession among others but to be a noble teacher or trainer is not easy at all. At the same time, teaching or a career in education has been popular among people with an academic bend of mind and those want to teach, learn and disseminate their knowledge and skill to get about the societies for preparing a developed and prosperous society as a whole. Although teachers have become less noble and a teaching career has become just another career choice, the regard and respect that the profession invokes in the minds of the common person is still large.
Further it is seen that teachers leave a permanent impression among students and have been instrumental in guiding students to achieve what they thought was not possible by them. Often teachers have the dual role of teaching and developing the character of the students by continuous mentoring and teaching. Most of the countries, particularly the European nations and the third world countries face a shortage of skilled teachers those throw a burning challenge before the nation but very few countries manage this problem by undertaking various programmes for raising skilled teachers and trainers.
In fact, the requirement is high not just for teachers, but also for school administrators, teacher’s aides, and instructional coordinators. Here, this effort is to find out the role of the school administration in enhancing the productivity of teachers through the process of mentoring which are also assisting in growing skilled trainers and mentors as well.
What Mentoring Is?
The word “Mentoring” was originated first in the Greek Language. “Mentoring-from the Greek word meaning enduring-is defined as a sustained relationship between a youth and an adult” as Dennis, 1993 opined. It is the process in which successful individuals go out of their normal routine to help others to establish goals and develop the skills to reach those goals. This means that mentoring is more like adopting a person and showing him a path, mostly a tried and tested one by a successful senior. The elder person always provides support, advice and assistance in times of need to the junior people or junior employees those need assistance to be skilled in future.
As the mentoring is necessary and effective approach to grow competency among people and employees, it is seen basically two types of mentoring approach: they are 1. natural mentoring and
2. planned mentoring. Natural mentoring happens informally as in families. Planned mentoring on the other hand, is usually a planned effort by the management of a business houses or organizations those start through a process of matching, selecting and training its staff, for a particular period of time to grow the particular skill and knowledge among the employees to perform particular jobs.
In the case of business or organizational streams, those follow planned mentoring path, there mentors are recruited from corporate houses, consultants etc, to take care of a group of trainees those will be trained for future particular assignment. The matching process is the most tedious and time-consuming one, because if the mentor and the trainee do not vibe well, the very purpose of the whole activity becomes a waste. The process of matching a mentor and a trainee can be done formally or informally through interviews, open discussion, description of experience, sharing past ideas and events, comparative interest sessions and group or personal interactions. When mentors and the trainees are given a chance to choose each other when they feel comfort to discuss and free talks, planned mentoring takes on many aspects of natural mentoring which is necessary to gain practical job skill.
It is common that the job of a teacher is to teach and the trainer to train the target participants. Although the job description sounds simple, but actually the job is very complicated because knowing something and making others understand it is not easy virtually these are two entirely different things. Teachers are required to fulfill many duties in teaching students. Some teachers see teaching as an extension of their previous career but in reality this a field of knowledge creation, research and innovation in education that needs for overall development of a human being.
On the other hand, many people apprehend it a genuine need to contribute to the development process of the society. Still others see teaching as a process that fills the void of effective role models in the society. A teacher has to have a mix of adequate knowledge, patience, skill, innovation, authority, and above all a genuine caring attitude to be able to become successful in his/her job for raising efficient people. The teacher must be selective and careful in using these skills in their workplaces. The biggest problem that most teachers face today is that they are not accepted by students and if the teacher is successful in this primary task, all other hurdles in their career can be cleared more easily. Mentoring, as far as teachers are concerned is a sort of training because it gives the teacher an idea about how he/she must go about performing his/her duties as a whole.
Among others, Pool (1997) also reveals that mentoring is the form of effective leadership that can help a lot in grooming the young teacher to reach performance levels that are expected of them. As far as the employees in the colleges are concerned, mentoring assumes two significant roles. The trainee will have to perform as a future mentor. Hence, good practices of development are very essential so that the benefits are passed on the next batch of students in the college. Bad relations between the mentor and his subordinates can also be a problem that can affect the job satisfaction levels. This scenario is very dangerous in the education scenario because the mentor and the trainee are adults who may not follow authority protocols. As Pool (1997) manifested that the reputation and professional skill of the mentor far outweighs anything else. So the matter should be carefully measured on the part of the mentor.
Need for mentoring
In many institutions/organizations, junior teachers/trainers and senior employees have an overlap of roles and this may be more pronounced as the responsibility of the employee increases. Diversity in roles have been a major success formula for business organizations as Hopkins, highlighted in 2001. However, such role requirements may be not in line with the individual’s aspirations and personality. In fact experts have not been properly able to differentiate whether role ambiguity or role conflict cause people to leave educational institutions. There are often conflicts between new and old teachers and it is seen that the management mostly supports the experienced teachers even when the needs and demands of the new teachers may be justified. This sort of management behavior has been cited as a major reason for the erosion of confidence and enthusiasm in new teachers and junior teachers.
Design training for community needs
As we know that teachers and trainers need a high-level of proficiency in delivering effective knowledge and skill among the learners of all level. So, need based skill creating training is very effective for the trainers and teachers in their professional activities. It is well recognized that
teachers without adequate training often have a significant problem in performing well [Ashmos, 2002]. It is seen that most new teachers are assigned responsibilities that are opportunistically thrust on them. Assigning teachers with difficult duties with which they have no experience, is a common problem. Even a good training programs will be inadequate in these circumstances because the teachers have to deal with situations that are not listed in the training programs. Only a good mentor will be able to support the teacher and guide him/her through this difficult phase.
Interaction and relationship between mentor and trainee can get out of hand sometimes through close interactions that may ensue as part of the program. Most managements take necessary precautions before the launch of such programs. It is in such cases that the reputation and professional skill of the mentor far out weighs anything else to the company. “Yes, it’s difficult to find effective mentors as it is. Yes, many mentors don’t believe they need any training or advice. Some will refuse to volunteer if they hear about potential ethical issues and challenges according to Jones, 2001.
It is also noted that effective mentoring approaches are goal-oriented and focus on the trainee’s skill, knowledge, and/or attitude development. It is very important that the trainee too have a plan of development before they come into contact with a mentor. Research shows that people learn best by observing experts and by being given assignments. One of the main role and responsibly of the mentor is to review the progress of the trainee and to keep him accountable for his performance. Mentoring is a mutually beneficial arrangement because both the mentor and the trainee benefit from the exercise. As far as the trainee is concerned, he will be able to tap into the rich experience and teaching strategies of the mentor. He can be assured that the techniques of the mentor would work, because the mentor himself is a living example of success. He will also learn to avoid mistakes that would have been committed by the mentor. In short, the mentor takes him through an experimented and tried path of success.
The difference in age is a very big factor that ensures the success of the mentor-trainee relationships. The difference in age in itself is a psychological factor that influences the trainee and makes him or her automatically respect the mentor. The others side of the effect of age on the relation is that the mentor can impart his maturity and tact to the trainee, who is immature and just out of college or university.
The importance of mentoring assumes significance for teachers because often, newly appointed teachers have to face problems that are similar in magnitude and complexity to the problems that are faced by experienced teachers. Since experience is a big asset in handling these problems, a good mentor will be able to guide new and inexperienced teachers to achieve his professional goals as a whole.
Study revealed that inexperienced teachers have a high probability to leave the profession because of the daily stress and workload that they have to face as part of their professional activities. It was seen that most new teachers leave their jobs in the first two years due to adverse working conditions in the work place [Casey & Mitchell, 1996]. Already the teaching profession is under severe stress and the number of teachers is already dwindling to new lows. In addition, the lack of new teachers has further strengthened the need to use the experience of old teachers to guide the fresh teachers.
In real sense, mentoring is that the new teacher feels completely comfort in the new school. Newly recruited teachers feel safe under a mentor because the mentor is a resort in times of difficulty. Most teachers consider themselves as trainees under a mentor, and that position in itself is very soothing to them. Most new teachers prefer to work as a trainee under a good mentor and then advance as a teacher when they acquire the sufficient skills to handle the class and training sessions. There is a lot of psychological strength that fresh teachers derive when they work under a good and trained mentor. Trainees do not feel that they are being undermined professionally when they are under a mentor. On the contrary, they are able to respect the skills of the mentor, which was gathered through experience, and appreciate the fact that they are still students. Teaching and training are not just the exchange of knowledge. Many philosophical and psychological factors that are involved in teaching are not taught at the teacher’s training sessions and have to be invariable gained by experience. Research and opinion polls have shown that new teachers turn to the Principal the most, to be mentored, mostly because he/she has the most experience, in the school. In most cases, when the Principal was ready to help them, teachers were encouraged to continue in the school. “Beginning teachers identify the school principal as a key source of support and guidance. Increasingly, principals recognize a need for first-year teacher assistance and are attempting to provide it” [Brock & Grady, 1998, p. 182]. This proves that mentors need to be resourceful enough to provide that role that he/she is expected of, by the new teacher. Fresh teachers expect various roles from mentors. They may expect a role model, a teacher, a philosopher, an understanding person, a protector and a communicator. Only a good mentor can perform all or any of these roles to various personalities who come to the school as fresh teachers.
Needless to say that the fresh teachers are not skilled and experienced enough to teach, the fact that a huge number of older teachers are nearing their retirement ages is a strong factor that has encouraged the government to start teacher-mentoring programmes. The authorities believe that the experience of these teachers must not go waste and that it should be used to train new teachers to enhance their capability to perform jobs effectively. In this context, mentoring has the role of maintaining quality in educational circles [Katayama, 2001].
Many studies revealed that revealed that the effort of mentoring was very beneficial to the fresh and new teachers and equally this is a way to know the trainees about their lacks and strengths so that these lacks might be removed gradually under the guidance of an experienced mentors. There are many factors that affect the success rate of a mentoring program. Mentoring will not be successful if done in a tense atmosphere because in such a case senior teachers will be more interested in self-development. They would be looking for ways to enhance their careers and stay ahead of the competition. The organization must have the adequate number of mentors and if numbers fall short than required, the school must hire experienced and qualified people. Another important requirement is that the dealings between the mentor and the trainee must be very confidential, because the basis of the mentor-trainee relationship is confidence. If the trainee feels that the process is some sort of an assessment or that it would lead to a confidential report to the top management, he will be less forthcoming and will try to hold back himself, which destroys the very purpose of the activity. Usually the requirement of the management is to see that the goals of the trainee are satisfied more than the mentor in reality.
Conclusion
Study shows that job satisfaction among employees in the organizations is definitely affected by many factors like stress, work schedule, knowledge up-gradation etc. While most of these factors may be considered as challenges that are part of the job, the overbearing attitude of the management cannot be tolerated. There are proven initiatives that help the teacher/employees and the management to work with peak productivity within their defined roles. These methods have to be applied in order to ensure the overall development of students, teachers, and the school and other institutions in general. Based on the above discussion, it is manifested that mentoring is one of the best of these techniques train people properly. The idea of introducing a mentor to train young recruits in a school can be seen as measure of risk management by the Organisation. Many schools have imbibed the fact that training with a personal touch, is far better than long hours of training in the classrooms. A personal mentor is actually an experience, which will motivate the fresh recruit to live up to his duties. And be able to play the effective role in workplaces in the long run. So it is important that the process of mentoring would be given priority during the design of training programme of any organization for achieving their goal in the years to come.
Needless to say that Teaching is the noblest profession among others but to be a noble teacher or trainer is not easy at all. At the same time, teaching or a career in education has been popular among people with an academic bend of mind and those want to teach, learn and disseminate their knowledge and skill to get about the societies for preparing a developed and prosperous society as a whole. Although teachers have become less noble and a teaching career has become just another career choice, the regard and respect that the profession invokes in the minds of the common person is still large.
Further it is seen that teachers leave a permanent impression among students and have been instrumental in guiding students to achieve what they thought was not possible by them. Often teachers have the dual role of teaching and developing the character of the students by continuous mentoring and teaching. Most of the countries, particularly the European nations and the third world countries face a shortage of skilled teachers those throw a burning challenge before the nation but very few countries manage this problem by undertaking various programmes for raising skilled teachers and trainers.
In fact, the requirement is high not just for teachers, but also for school administrators, teacher’s aides, and instructional coordinators. Here, this effort is to find out the role of the school administration in enhancing the productivity of teachers through the process of mentoring which are also assisting in growing skilled trainers and mentors as well.
What Mentoring Is?
The word “Mentoring” was originated first in the Greek Language. “Mentoring-from the Greek word meaning enduring-is defined as a sustained relationship between a youth and an adult” as Dennis, 1993 opined. It is the process in which successful individuals go out of their normal routine to help others to establish goals and develop the skills to reach those goals. This means that mentoring is more like adopting a person and showing him a path, mostly a tried and tested one by a successful senior. The elder person always provides support, advice and assistance in times of need to the junior people or junior employees those need assistance to be skilled in future.
As the mentoring is necessary and effective approach to grow competency among people and employees, it is seen basically two types of mentoring approach: they are 1. natural mentoring and
2. planned mentoring. Natural mentoring happens informally as in families. Planned mentoring on the other hand, is usually a planned effort by the management of a business houses or organizations those start through a process of matching, selecting and training its staff, for a particular period of time to grow the particular skill and knowledge among the employees to perform particular jobs.
In the case of business or organizational streams, those follow planned mentoring path, there mentors are recruited from corporate houses, consultants etc, to take care of a group of trainees those will be trained for future particular assignment. The matching process is the most tedious and time-consuming one, because if the mentor and the trainee do not vibe well, the very purpose of the whole activity becomes a waste. The process of matching a mentor and a trainee can be done formally or informally through interviews, open discussion, description of experience, sharing past ideas and events, comparative interest sessions and group or personal interactions. When mentors and the trainees are given a chance to choose each other when they feel comfort to discuss and free talks, planned mentoring takes on many aspects of natural mentoring which is necessary to gain practical job skill.
It is common that the job of a teacher is to teach and the trainer to train the target participants. Although the job description sounds simple, but actually the job is very complicated because knowing something and making others understand it is not easy virtually these are two entirely different things. Teachers are required to fulfill many duties in teaching students. Some teachers see teaching as an extension of their previous career but in reality this a field of knowledge creation, research and innovation in education that needs for overall development of a human being.
On the other hand, many people apprehend it a genuine need to contribute to the development process of the society. Still others see teaching as a process that fills the void of effective role models in the society. A teacher has to have a mix of adequate knowledge, patience, skill, innovation, authority, and above all a genuine caring attitude to be able to become successful in his/her job for raising efficient people. The teacher must be selective and careful in using these skills in their workplaces. The biggest problem that most teachers face today is that they are not accepted by students and if the teacher is successful in this primary task, all other hurdles in their career can be cleared more easily. Mentoring, as far as teachers are concerned is a sort of training because it gives the teacher an idea about how he/she must go about performing his/her duties as a whole.
Among others, Pool (1997) also reveals that mentoring is the form of effective leadership that can help a lot in grooming the young teacher to reach performance levels that are expected of them. As far as the employees in the colleges are concerned, mentoring assumes two significant roles. The trainee will have to perform as a future mentor. Hence, good practices of development are very essential so that the benefits are passed on the next batch of students in the college. Bad relations between the mentor and his subordinates can also be a problem that can affect the job satisfaction levels. This scenario is very dangerous in the education scenario because the mentor and the trainee are adults who may not follow authority protocols. As Pool (1997) manifested that the reputation and professional skill of the mentor far outweighs anything else. So the matter should be carefully measured on the part of the mentor.
Need for mentoring
In many institutions/organizations, junior teachers/trainers and senior employees have an overlap of roles and this may be more pronounced as the responsibility of the employee increases. Diversity in roles have been a major success formula for business organizations as Hopkins, highlighted in 2001. However, such role requirements may be not in line with the individual’s aspirations and personality. In fact experts have not been properly able to differentiate whether role ambiguity or role conflict cause people to leave educational institutions. There are often conflicts between new and old teachers and it is seen that the management mostly supports the experienced teachers even when the needs and demands of the new teachers may be justified. This sort of management behavior has been cited as a major reason for the erosion of confidence and enthusiasm in new teachers and junior teachers.
Design training for community needs
As we know that teachers and trainers need a high-level of proficiency in delivering effective knowledge and skill among the learners of all level. So, need based skill creating training is very effective for the trainers and teachers in their professional activities. It is well recognized that
teachers without adequate training often have a significant problem in performing well [Ashmos, 2002]. It is seen that most new teachers are assigned responsibilities that are opportunistically thrust on them. Assigning teachers with difficult duties with which they have no experience, is a common problem. Even a good training programs will be inadequate in these circumstances because the teachers have to deal with situations that are not listed in the training programs. Only a good mentor will be able to support the teacher and guide him/her through this difficult phase.
Interaction and relationship between mentor and trainee can get out of hand sometimes through close interactions that may ensue as part of the program. Most managements take necessary precautions before the launch of such programs. It is in such cases that the reputation and professional skill of the mentor far out weighs anything else to the company. “Yes, it’s difficult to find effective mentors as it is. Yes, many mentors don’t believe they need any training or advice. Some will refuse to volunteer if they hear about potential ethical issues and challenges according to Jones, 2001.
It is also noted that effective mentoring approaches are goal-oriented and focus on the trainee’s skill, knowledge, and/or attitude development. It is very important that the trainee too have a plan of development before they come into contact with a mentor. Research shows that people learn best by observing experts and by being given assignments. One of the main role and responsibly of the mentor is to review the progress of the trainee and to keep him accountable for his performance. Mentoring is a mutually beneficial arrangement because both the mentor and the trainee benefit from the exercise. As far as the trainee is concerned, he will be able to tap into the rich experience and teaching strategies of the mentor. He can be assured that the techniques of the mentor would work, because the mentor himself is a living example of success. He will also learn to avoid mistakes that would have been committed by the mentor. In short, the mentor takes him through an experimented and tried path of success.
The difference in age is a very big factor that ensures the success of the mentor-trainee relationships. The difference in age in itself is a psychological factor that influences the trainee and makes him or her automatically respect the mentor. The others side of the effect of age on the relation is that the mentor can impart his maturity and tact to the trainee, who is immature and just out of college or university.
The importance of mentoring assumes significance for teachers because often, newly appointed teachers have to face problems that are similar in magnitude and complexity to the problems that are faced by experienced teachers. Since experience is a big asset in handling these problems, a good mentor will be able to guide new and inexperienced teachers to achieve his professional goals as a whole.
Study revealed that inexperienced teachers have a high probability to leave the profession because of the daily stress and workload that they have to face as part of their professional activities. It was seen that most new teachers leave their jobs in the first two years due to adverse working conditions in the work place [Casey & Mitchell, 1996]. Already the teaching profession is under severe stress and the number of teachers is already dwindling to new lows. In addition, the lack of new teachers has further strengthened the need to use the experience of old teachers to guide the fresh teachers.
In real sense, mentoring is that the new teacher feels completely comfort in the new school. Newly recruited teachers feel safe under a mentor because the mentor is a resort in times of difficulty. Most teachers consider themselves as trainees under a mentor, and that position in itself is very soothing to them. Most new teachers prefer to work as a trainee under a good mentor and then advance as a teacher when they acquire the sufficient skills to handle the class and training sessions. There is a lot of psychological strength that fresh teachers derive when they work under a good and trained mentor. Trainees do not feel that they are being undermined professionally when they are under a mentor. On the contrary, they are able to respect the skills of the mentor, which was gathered through experience, and appreciate the fact that they are still students. Teaching and training are not just the exchange of knowledge. Many philosophical and psychological factors that are involved in teaching are not taught at the teacher’s training sessions and have to be invariable gained by experience. Research and opinion polls have shown that new teachers turn to the Principal the most, to be mentored, mostly because he/she has the most experience, in the school. In most cases, when the Principal was ready to help them, teachers were encouraged to continue in the school. “Beginning teachers identify the school principal as a key source of support and guidance. Increasingly, principals recognize a need for first-year teacher assistance and are attempting to provide it” [Brock & Grady, 1998, p. 182]. This proves that mentors need to be resourceful enough to provide that role that he/she is expected of, by the new teacher. Fresh teachers expect various roles from mentors. They may expect a role model, a teacher, a philosopher, an understanding person, a protector and a communicator. Only a good mentor can perform all or any of these roles to various personalities who come to the school as fresh teachers.
Needless to say that the fresh teachers are not skilled and experienced enough to teach, the fact that a huge number of older teachers are nearing their retirement ages is a strong factor that has encouraged the government to start teacher-mentoring programmes. The authorities believe that the experience of these teachers must not go waste and that it should be used to train new teachers to enhance their capability to perform jobs effectively. In this context, mentoring has the role of maintaining quality in educational circles [Katayama, 2001].
Many studies revealed that revealed that the effort of mentoring was very beneficial to the fresh and new teachers and equally this is a way to know the trainees about their lacks and strengths so that these lacks might be removed gradually under the guidance of an experienced mentors. There are many factors that affect the success rate of a mentoring program. Mentoring will not be successful if done in a tense atmosphere because in such a case senior teachers will be more interested in self-development. They would be looking for ways to enhance their careers and stay ahead of the competition. The organization must have the adequate number of mentors and if numbers fall short than required, the school must hire experienced and qualified people. Another important requirement is that the dealings between the mentor and the trainee must be very confidential, because the basis of the mentor-trainee relationship is confidence. If the trainee feels that the process is some sort of an assessment or that it would lead to a confidential report to the top management, he will be less forthcoming and will try to hold back himself, which destroys the very purpose of the activity. Usually the requirement of the management is to see that the goals of the trainee are satisfied more than the mentor in reality.
Conclusion
Study shows that job satisfaction among employees in the organizations is definitely affected by many factors like stress, work schedule, knowledge up-gradation etc. While most of these factors may be considered as challenges that are part of the job, the overbearing attitude of the management cannot be tolerated. There are proven initiatives that help the teacher/employees and the management to work with peak productivity within their defined roles. These methods have to be applied in order to ensure the overall development of students, teachers, and the school and other institutions in general. Based on the above discussion, it is manifested that mentoring is one of the best of these techniques train people properly. The idea of introducing a mentor to train young recruits in a school can be seen as measure of risk management by the Organisation. Many schools have imbibed the fact that training with a personal touch, is far better than long hours of training in the classrooms. A personal mentor is actually an experience, which will motivate the fresh recruit to live up to his duties. And be able to play the effective role in workplaces in the long run. So it is important that the process of mentoring would be given priority during the design of training programme of any organization for achieving their goal in the years to come.
(Mohammad Mosaddek Hussain. MCHRD, MIPM)
