Support, encouragement, mutual respect, confidence and trust in the mentoring process were emphasised by the teachers as significant elements that enabled empowering learning processes. In addition, the mentor's devotion and enthusiasm were indicated as catalyst of the mentoring collective discourse. These elements helped them cope successfully with enhancing change in their teaching methods and in their role as skill mediators. I placed these expressions under the title of 'emotional support' because of the sense of confidence and lack of threat they evoked during mentoring. This emotional support encouraged them to dare to take risks during the learning process. Teachers began to share weaknesses that they had previously encountered in their work, as well as difficulties they had during the process.
The following situation illustrates the connection between support and encouragement, on the one hand, and the teachers' willingness to open up and share their earlier lack of knowledge, on the other. During a mentoring session with Clara, while she reflected on a new test that she had designed, I expressed my appreciation and excitement upon noticing that she had implemented new insights in her work. In my words, I stressed my appreciation of her professionalism, characterised by learning processes that are accompanied by monitoring, assessment and constant reorganisation of existing knowledge:
Tiki: It’s amazing how much you learn and implement from one meeting to the next. In my sessions with you, I feel a refilling of energies…all your activity really excites me…and taking it all straight to the class, and then learning again without recoiling…you keep seeking new ways to improve. You have so much motivation.
As a response, Clara immediately pulled out another old test (prepared by the staff) and said:
Wait, if you are excited by such things then come over and look, there's more… [She pointed at the teachers' lack of knowledge concerning the skills components and their names:] Have a look. These are tests we prepared in the past. I brought them for you to see…We wrote pre-reading and then we asked questions that required intensive pre-reading.
Nevertheless, Sigal's reflection on her learning experience reminds us of the other side of learning – the difficulties and struggle:
To be entangled and confused is what one needs in order to learn.
You get to see the process while in the peak in this kind of instruction.
(April 2004, emphasis added)
Sharing the excitement and enthusiasm of learning was found to be a prominent characteristic of the participant structure. It was part and parcel of the learning and empowering processes.
The mentor's involvement and commitment to the learning process provided the teachers with a source of confidence and trust in their ability to cope with change.
Sigal's comment points at these qualities in the mentor: "Your devotion to the concept and to the staff leaves no room for despair."
Teachers started to experience the real excitement of learning. My expressions of enthusiasm in connection with the teachers' development began to be reflected in their behaviour:
"Come over and put on five kilos… (i.e. come and enjoy the new achievement)," or "Come here, I have something you would like."
When I asked: "Are you doing this for my sake?" the answer was: "No, but we know you can get excited by it," or, "Not everyone can understand this.(Personal journal, April, 2004)
The mutual enthusiasm from learning that characterised the mentor-teacher participant structure was replicated in the teacher-pupil context. Orna's reflection on her actions demonstrates this change:
My enthusiasm rubbed off on them. A weak pupil whom I don’t teach [any more] comes to me and reports his marks in grammar. [This was]
a pupil we classified as being low-average (in a surprised tone).
Clara's words that "Not everyone caught this bug" indicated disappointment on her part that not all her staff members experienced this pattern of enthusiasm. These expressions marked the closing of a circle for me, which started by identifying a problem in the field of mentoring. I sought to engage the teachers' enthusiasm through learning experiences. I noticed that those who did "catch the bug"
indicated that they entered productive learning cycles. Following additional meaningful learning experiences, some of them reached a point where they could mentor and mediate the learning of their pupils and their colleagues as well. (These findings will be presented in Sub-section 4.3.2, dealing with the empowerment of the organisation) In Chapter 5 (Discussion), where I will present evidence from brain studies that validate the significance of enthusiasm as an indicator of meaningful learning processes
Orna's sharing of her lack of knowledge with me should not be taken for granted.
She is an experienced teacher with a professional repertoire whose reactions in the
first sessions transmitted the message: "I know." Eventually, trust was built. The findings show that mutual learning during the discourse enabled that development.
The following quote indicates that her confidence in self-disclosure was based on reciprocal learning between mentor and teacher:
In the past I used to teach parts of the [paragraph] structure for identification [of the paragraph component] and I did not go deeper into the processing…Now I feel it's easier after what we have done…
We [teachers] worked intuitively[in the past]. Great! We enjoyed it and left without making any progress, with no monitoring…It is easier to connect to a mentor. In mentoring, you too, as a mentor, learn;
things change in you; the shared learning. (May 2004, emphasis added)
Sigal's sense of confidence in the mentor relied on the supportive and assistive aspects of the mentoring, thus fostering teacher growth:
You help to remove the obstacles and leap forward. Your presence among us leaves no room for 'stagnation' or for 'being stuck', you are close at hand coaxing us to experiment… The fact that we can rely on your assistance at any time, is responsible for those seeds [of creativity.] (Emphasis added)
When I interviewed Moshe, the Head-teacher, trying to draw insight from the processes we experienced together, he reinforced these aspects of confidence and trust, this time from his personal point of view. An understanding of the teachers' openness to learning is emphasised here in reference to the mentor's professionalism as a knowledgeable and trusted figure.
Tiki: Is trust connected only to discretion?
Moshe: A philosopher said [he tries to recall an appropriate metaphor]
…your being able to lay your head on the shoulder [of the mentor] and the head may stay on that shoulder for support and reinforcement, the result…trust. (May 30, 2004, emphasis added)
These aspects of the mentor's discretion and the teacher/Head-teacher's ability to place trust in professional support constituted the main bond in the relationship
among the research participants. Trust was thus a prominent feature of the participant structure. The mentor was an address for sharing and reflecting on difficulties, both professional and interpersonal within the organisation. Difficulties included the teachers' overt and covert power struggles. This pattern of behaviour was expressed in the creation of trustworthy relations and a sense of confidence in the mentor. Some teachers, while coming to share their difficulties, pointed out: "I am confident you will not talk about this."
I enlisted my proactive approach, to which I will now turn, in order to navigate power struggles within the organisation towards a dynamic that empowered the research partners.