One of the more salient parts of these articles was that teaching mentorships build relationships and leadership skills within new employees. All of the new teachers I have mentored have not been new to the profession teachers, they have come to Sweet Home with numerous years of experience under their belt. In that regard, I appreciate that the first two articles lean into the fact that mentorship is not just developing NEW teachers but new to the district teachers. This year, I feel like the focus on my mentorship was on developing the school culture and leadership skills within my mentee.
My strengths lie in my empathetic listening skills. Being an excellent mentor means being a good listener. I like that listening skills were repeated in these articles. This also means that there needs to be a balance between providing quality encouragement and feedback (from the TedTalk) as well as listening and driving discussion around what the mentee needs/brings up.
I think my area of growth is to commit to more time at the end of the year for reflection. When looking at the graph, I did not follow through or devote as much time to discussions about reflection as much as I did in the beginning when I felt like it was all hands on deck.