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J. Kriewaldt et al. (eds.), Educating Future Teachers: Innovative Perspectives
in Professional Experience, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-5484-6_6
Chapter 6
Distinguishing Spaces of Mentoring:
Mentoring as Praxis
Debra Talbot
Abstract Against a landscape of accreditation and accountability mechanisms that
seek to govern the work of teachers from afar, this chapter draws on research and
recent innovations in mentoring practices to move discussion on from an historical
focus on definitions of the roles of mentors and mentees to consideration of the
actual doings of those involved in mentoring relationships. In so doing, it aims to
contribute to a conceptualisation of mentoring as praxis, that is, a morally and ethi-
cally informed practice. A vignette of dialogic mentoring involving a preservice
teacher with a school-based and a university-based teacher educator is drawn on to
illustrate the enactment of mentoring as praxis in which all three learn more about
the complicated and complex practice of teaching.
Introduction
Given the pace with which the profession has evolved in the past decade, it is impor-
tant to revisit mentoring as praxis, with a view to the work that is currently being
done in Australia, particularly in relation to teacher accreditation and accountability
mechanisms. In this chapter I draw on relevant research and recent innovations in
mentoring practices to move discussion on from an historical focus on definitions of
the roles of mentors and mentees, in what might be considered as largely ‘supervi-
sory arrangements’, to consideration of the actual doings of those involved in men-
toring relationships. In so doing, I aim to contribute to a conceptualisation of
mentoring as praxis – morally and ethically informed practice (Kemmis & Smith,
2008 ) – that it is transformative and mutually educative.
This chapter is concerned with the spaces in which mentoring might occur, par-
ticularly physical spaces, who might be in those spaces and what might they be
doing there that constitutes a mutually educative approach to mentoring. It seeks to
offer a justification of why I believe it is necessary to the interests of ongoing teacher
education, and particularly initial teacher education, to trouble the existing paradigm
D. Talbot (*)
University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
e-mail: [email protected]