Teacher as mentor, teacher as learner: Lessons from a middle‐school language arts teacher

Abstract

This article reports results of a year‐long study of the mentoring relationship between an experienced middle school language arts teacher, Dera, and a novice teacher, Kelly. Our research focused primarily on what Dera learned about herself as an educator through the mentor relationship. Randi, a university educator, worked with Dera and Kelly during the year to provide another layer of support in thinking about issues of learning to teach. We analyzed transcripts from research and mentor meetings along with journal entries from the year‐long study in order to be able to report the “lessons learned”: planning the learning experiences in mentoring, letting the mentoring relationship evolve, and “putting yourself out there” as a teacher and learner.