such as Melanie, the importance of empathy and offering emotional support added a
new dimension to her understanding of her role
There was an emphasis on supporting them and I think it helped me ultimately be more
sensitive towards the end, just a bit more sensitive to their whole experience and...how
terrifying it was. You know, we kind of know about that, but we forget...Once you put us
in touch with that, I was thinking,“Gee, it must be a very intimidating experience”.SoI
was able to put myself in her shoes and understand how hard it would be and I tried to be a
bit more perceptive of that.For others, such as Greta, supporting personal growth was familiar but doing so in
the context of ensuring that professional standards were being met added a new
layer of complexity
I often thought perhaps I was a little bit too sensitive, touchy feely, I don’t know...not as
academically rigorous or professionally rigorous as some...[Men/tee] allowed me to really
identify the very important professional standards that had to be met and to be able to make
sure that I am supporting the pre-service teacher with understanding [them]...So, not just
supporting their personal growth, but also really reinforcing the professional expectations.According to Bullough and Draper ( 2004 ), the complex and multifaceted nature of
the mentoring role is a source of emotional labor but, as Maynard ( 2000 ) points out,
so too is role confusion. Opportunities for mentors to share and compare their
understandings of the nature of the role enabled some clarity to emerge, even in the
context of complexity.
Apart from developing more nuanced appreciation of the complexity and sig-
nificance of the mentoring role, some participants also made the critical identity
shift fromfirst-order to second-order practitioner. No longer thinking of themselves
as coaches or guides who simply make space for pre-service teachers to practice
teaching, participants such as Linda began to reconceptualise the mentor’s role as
that of school-based teacher educator. As part of her new understanding of her role,
she described beginning to choose intentionally which aspects of teaching were
important to teach her pre-service teacher
I did start thinking along the lines of“okay, so what do you actually need in your toolbox to
be a good teacher?”And I actually do think you need a certain amount of skills, like a ballet
dancer has moves, like a tradesman has tools and knows what to do with them. I just really
felt like that and all of a sudden it seemed quite clear that you actually do need some basic
skills.Linda’s choice of metaphors illustrates the way in which she was beginning to think
like a teacher educator. The image of the ballet dancer captures perfectly the sense
in which skilled professionals can make something complex seem so deceptively
easy to the untrained eye. She began to think of her own practice as a set of highly
skilled maneuvres that need to be made explicit to pre-service teachers so that they
see the complexity behind every seemingly simple pedagogical decision and action.
Likewise, the notion of the tradesman with tools that serve particular and discrete
purposes suggests the skilful and considered nature of teaching.
290 S. White and R. Forgasz