Allocation of a mentor Sample Clauses

Allocation of a mentor. All the novice teachers interviewed have been in the teaching profession for a maximum of three years and a minimum of one year. Hence the research site in which they were teaching at the moment of the interview has been their first working environment and a venue of their first teaching experience. According to participants responses, two approaches are followed to assign every novice teacher a mentor: automatic assignment and provision of a list in which mentees should choose their preferred mentors. In this regard, four mentees have experienced automatically assigning mentors, while four of them have had the privilege of choosing a mentor from a list of two to four available mentors. This shows that there are no strict rules when coming to the allocation of a mentor and every department head decides how to assign a mentor. However, when it comes to a mentee’s preference, an overwhelming majority still prefers having a chance to select their mentors. The following direct quotation provides evidence in this direction: Rather than assigning one, a mentee should have a possibility to choose because there are people I cannot work with, no matter what I do. That is why we should choose [be able to] (Mentee 7). Although it was perceived that senior teachers (i.e., older in age) tend to be more experienced and effective teachers, most of the participants have expressed their willingness to be mentored by the teachers of relatively the same age as themselves. The reasons for this include: a) comparatively younger colleagues are more accessible at establishing friendly and relaxed relationships which promote a positive perception of an induction period; b) these mentors have been mentees not long ago, hence have a broader understanding of the mentees’ needs; c) it is easier to express a different point of view in a given issue under discussion with a mentor of relatively the same age than with a mentor who is older, as more often the mentee would choose to remain silent as a way of respecting an older mentor. Additionally, “younger mentors are less likely to act superior as their age difference would not let look at mentees as their students but rather as an equal member of the community” (Mentee 6). Less than half of the participants deem that “working at the same speed” as their mentors is another important factor to be considered when assigning a senior teacher. Some mentors might be fast when explaining the material compared to their novice fellow teachers wh...