LISTENING: Week One of EDCI 396 Mentoring Matters

As a librarian, I like to think that I have worked hard to develop my listening skills. I honed my technique with reference interviews as a public librarian, building an ability to ask pertinent clarifying questions that help me get at the root of the information need. As a school librarian I often use those skills to help connect students with books they will be excited about, and to aide my colleagues in the use of technology in their teaching. I'm also not a naturally social person, so I have actively tried to develop the skill of sharing my personal experiences in conversation so that I will engage more, especially in social conversations at work.

When applied to mentoring, some of my listening techniques that serve me best in my day to day work life present a challenge. The Effective Listening Survey in Mentoring Matters indicated that I tend to use two types of listening that can be blocks to understanding in a mentor relationship. Most importantly, I am a problem solver. As a librarian I enjoy being a source of information, and want to be seen as a resource for both my students and my colleagues. While listening, I am looking for solutions and resources that I can provide. I can see through this week's readings the ways that I will need to actively readjust this communication habit in my relationship with my beginning teacher. Additionally, I will need to be very conscious of not wasting time and dominating conversations by sharing personal anecdotes. While I can see how some degree of hearing about another's experiences could be useful, I understand now that this type of sharing is not the purpose of the mentoring relationship. Lipton & Wellman also make the point that given the extremely limited time of a beginning teacher (and a beginning librarian where teaching is only one facet of our job), sharing personal stories is not a useful way to spend precious mentoring minutes, as it doesn't help the new teacher to grow.

One solution that Lipton & Wellman present to these communication challenges is recommending the use of structured conversations. They say, "the mentor is the master of momentum and the beginning teacher is the keeper of the content" (Mentoring Matters, p. 23). I found the section about structured conversations to be deeply affecting, especially the section on problem-solving conversations. Without this forethought and training, my natural impulse would be to say that a mentor should help their beginning teacher solve problems. But that isn't really true. Our job as mentors is to help the beginning teacher become a better problem solver. The elements of problem solving are:

• problem definition
• articulation of outcomes and success indicators
• strategies and resources for achieving success

I feel that the discussion and templates for structured conversations provided in Mentoring Matters have provided a clear framework for me to understand my job as a mentor. I also think that the use of conversation protocols could transform other aspects of my work life. For example, I'm part of my school's PBIS team and responsible for leading monthly MTSS conversations with the other Integrated Arts teachers. Creating more structure in these other work conversations will lead to more productive use of time, especially the clear articulation of problems. I'm looking forward to exploring structured conversations in more depth, and will definitely utilize the templates provided in Mentoring Matters to keep the focus on learning.