Teaching as Mentoring: How Secondary School Teachers Engage in the Mentoring of Students

Teaching as Mentoring: How Secondary School Teachers Engage in the Mentoring of StudentsMatthew DeJongDoctor of PhilosophyDepartment of Curriculum, Teaching and LearningUniversity of Toronto(2014) Abstract This qualitative study explores the perspectives of five secondary school teachers and four former secondary students in a large, suburban Ontario city on their practice and experiences of mentoring non-at-risk students in a diverse, rapidly changing, academically underperforming area. In-depth interviews conducted with teachers and students demonstrated that teachers incorporate elements found in the existing mentoring schemes, yet sometimes exceed such roles, integrating complex and intensive psycho-social and academic modes of mentoring into their daily work with students. Within this study, teachers and students define teaching as that which takes place within the context of the classroom, while mentoring was seen as those one-on-one relationships that develop over a significant period of time. The findings of my study illustrate that teachers who mentor their students produce insight into significant mentoring themes: teachers who mentor sometimes act in ways similar to classical notions of mentors, in lieu of an absent parent; both teachers and students propose that cross-cultural mentoring and opposite-gender mentoring should be encouraged, and that successful mentoring happens in an environment of competence and duration; mentoring is necessary in a secondary school environment and that caring is vital in today's relationships between teachers and students. The analysis also reveals that though mentoring improves student achievement and engagement, there are risks involved in the practice of mentoring for both teachers and students alike. This study also suggests that though the discipline of educational mentoring is robust, the study of secondary school teachers as mentors to students not deemed at-risk behaviourally or academically by their schools is rare. The findings further show that today's non-at-risk students can benefit significantly by the teacher-student mentoring relationship. Consequently, since mentoring is seen as a practice used by teachers in the secondary context, it is of great benefit for schools and policy makers to support these efforts, and that improving upon such practice should be a priority in teacher education and professional development.Ph.D