The Study
This article compares the differences between mentors who act as educators for new teachers and mentors who see their job as offering short-term support for novices. Dr. Sharon Feiman-Nemser, professor of teacher education as Michigan State University, discusses both personal experiences, research studies and her own practical experiments to illustrate the unique contribution that teachers can make to novices' learning. The goal of her work is to stimulate thinking and discussion about why teachers should play a more central role in teacher education, what programs like this would look like and how to move in this direction.

The Findings
Teachers who serve as mentors rarely see themselves as educators for new teachers. Nor do they feel it's their role to help novices learn to think and act like a teacher. Many believe teaching cannot be taught, and is learned by experience. Ironically, many of these same mentors hold the contradictory view that it is the university's job to teach teachers. Those studied who have taken a more active role in teaching novices allow opportunities for the novice to participate in the thought process behind developing curriculum and goals for the classroom. In this kind of mentoring, teacher learning results from doing and talking about the work together, not from any direct mentoring effort.

What It Means to You
Do your mentors view themselves as a teaching role model? To help them do so, have the mentor ask the novice frequent questions to promote thought and discussion between the two about teaching. Offer training to mentors that encourages them to help the novices understand how pupils are thinking and learning. Try to create an atmosphere in which the novice feels free to ask questions and take an active role in developing appropriate responses to ever-changing instructional situations. With this assistance, the new teacher can learn to interpret what his/her pupils say and do, and to use that knowledge in planning and teaching.

More Information
For further discussion on the issues surrounding mentoring, consult Feiman-Nemser, S. (1998). Teachers as Teacher Educators. European Journal of Teacher Education. 21(1) 63-74.

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