Importance of Mentor and Teacher

Every person has come on this earth with some beautiful gifts. First up, he gets loving and caring parents, and then as he grows up he gets a lot of teachers and valuable mentors.

One might ask what the difference between a teacher and a mentor is. I would like to tell them to think about their own lives and the incidences happened in their life.

During the tough and unfortunate period who was/were with him.

What was their contribution to his life? I am sure you will get the answer.

I rate a teacher and a mentor next to parents as these two can give the right direction to our life.

Of course, parents also do but the difference is a blood relation.

Parents would mostly leave it to us when it’s time to decide because they don’t want to force their decision on us.

However, teachers and mentors can make a positive impression on one’s life by counseling and guiding a person to give them proper direction.

Teacher

After parents at an early age, first, we meet our teachers in school. A teacher is usually supposed to help students to get knowledge and make them prepare for the future.

A teacher who is doing a job for a government school or private institution is termed a teacher but that does not mean that others cannot be teachers.

A wide definition of a teacher can be expressed as a person who is willing to share not only knowledge but also experience with his students.

A teacher does not have boundaries related to a student’s age as anyone can be a student irrespective of age.

We all know the phrase ‘learning never ends’ as at every stage a person learns something.

A teacher’s role may vary according to the situation. Some schools insist on one teacher for one subject whereas some schools insist on multiple subject-oriented teachers.

It depends on the skill and knowledge of the individual teacher and the schools or institutions hiring them.

There is a difference between the styles of the teaching of each teacher.

Two different teachers will be teaching the same subject entirely differently.

However, the aim of both teachers will be the same and that is to give knowledge to the students.

From the student’s view also each teacher will be seen with a different perspective.

Students will like to learn from specific teachers as they can easily understand the subject.

Teaching is more of an art than skill as the art is more difficult to express but once you learn it you can have a lot of followers.

Another point is, to teach a specific matter; first, you must learn it by heart as this makes it easier for you to explain to others.

For example, if you are telling a solution for the question you ask, then you may become a popular teacher.

Mentor

Mentorship is quite a self-acclaimed role because a mentor is someone whom you can look at when you have problems in your life.

He is a person who drives you out of issues or helps you to make a decision that you are not able to take.

Thus mentorship is guidance, direction, or influence given by a mentor.

Mentorship does not come in instant, which means we don’t go to a person who is a stranger to us for guidance.

Mentorship is a process because a lot of interpersonal emotions and relations are engulfed between the two persons. The bonding and trust are very deep.

You just can’t become someone’s mentor overnight.

Like a teacher, mentorship also does not have restrictions of age bar as anyone can be a mentor.

A mentor is a person who shares his knowledge and experience for the benefit of his junior and the organization if it is.

Roles and responsibilities:

If we want to describe the roles and responsibilities of a teacher and mentor, it is essential to differentiate the terms and conditions under which both work.

Teachers typically are hired for educating the students in schools, colleges, and other institutions.

Mentors are as such not hired but they volunteer for the mentorship mostly, if not always.

However, many schools and colleges are hiring mentor teachers nowadays to train the students and prepare them to understand the values of life.

Ideally, the mentor teachers are designated to carry out three categories viz planning and communication, support to learning, and assessment of the progress.

1. Planning and communication:

Plan a learning path for the student by knowing the needs of your pal.

Letting him learn to observe your planning closely and understand what he needs to learn.

There is a stepwise introduction of your student into the major education system.

For the long-term planning of your student, you need to decide a specific time to interact with him.

You have to identify his probable requirements including topics and place of study.

Before you suggest the same to him, you are needed to know everything about the course you are going to suggest.

While the student is having his major study you can assess him and give verbal and written feedback of his progress.

It should include the progress as on the date and let the student know where he is and what is next.

There have to be valued suggestions during every conclusion you make.

You should also insist on knowing what the student has understood.

The mentor teacher is also expected to interact with the teacher at school to discuss his student’s progress, problems, and understanding.

You can also plan a meeting between the teacher, student, and you. This might help to resolve some problems on the table itself.

Mentor teachers need to exhibit to the student the standard ways of communication, presentation, and appearance.

Regularly conduct or attend the meetings for mentor teachers and share your experience with others.

2. Support learning

Sharing the ideas, observations, and decisions with the student.

If your co-ordinate is a teacher you can take the supporting teacher role and see how the intern is teaching in terms of knowledge, approach, and understanding.

Whether the intern is a student or teacher you must provide written feedback to him and discuss with him how it can be done better.

If the intern is willing to take complete charge, you need to verify his ability and give him an opportunity to try once.

Discussion with the intern about the strategies, approach, and ideas is very important as it can let the intern learn quickly.

The communication also must be transparent.

Participate regularly in meetings or conferences with your intern and prepare a report on the topics covered in them.

3. Assessment of overall understanding

Periodic information about the progress of the intern is to be written in his notebook.

It can cover various points related to strategies, learning, teaching, and ideas demonstrated.

Interact with the parents of the intern to inform them about the school’s programs, objectives, colleagues, and courses so that they are aware of the progress and planning of the intern.

Share your plan of teaching with a goal, benefit, and potential issues with the intern.

• Assessment of progress:

To access the progress of the intern a well-developed map is to be made. Mentor teachers must know the growth and development of interns periodically to tap their further talent and lead them to complete the goals. For this following can be considered –

• Working with students

• Learning in a school and profession

• Knowledge of topics and how to teach them

• To create an atmosphere to teach and learn

Teacher’s and mentors important roles:

We can see in the below explained points how teachers and mentors help in our lives and what is the importance of their presence in our lives. These are the things our teachers and mentors work on us to make us ready to face the challenges we are going to face in the future.

Important topics of life

The mentor teacher will identify the important topics which we need to learn according to our assessment.

They will also identify basic hurdles in our life so that they can make a plan to overcome those.

They start their action by communicating what they have listed.

Chalk out the plan:

They prepare a plan to overcome the listed issues what are the things to be done.

They will discuss it with their interns and set the goals with timelines.

There might be some restrictions on what an intern can do or what can’t do so as to eliminate the possibilities of diversion.

Know what the intern thinks

They will put themselves in the intern’s position and try to find out what the intern might be thinking about a particular situation.

Sometimes they don’t need to do so as they might have gone through similar situations.

The mentor teacher likes to be his intern to be comfortable with him and speak about out what is in his mind or what are things he is fighting with.

Notable growth in an intern

If the student has some distinguishing quality, a mentor teacher makes a note of it and tries to encourage that strong point to build his personality.

He also keeps track of his intern’s growth as it is essential to know whether the timelines are maintained.

Teach to focus

The mentor teacher knows the strength and weaknesses of all his novices and makes amendments to correct the weakness and build on the strength.

It may happen that the weak point can be converted into strength with proper grooming.

They make you practice things many times which will help you to remember them easily.

Giving appropriate examples

The mentor teacher will relate the incidences in your life by giving fitting examples so that you can be clear about what you need to do.

Sometimes they will exhibit live examples in which you can participate and feel how it is working.

Set examples of teaching practices

A mentor teacher will present the best examples of teaching practices to demonstrate the actions which will enable the intern to understand the thoughts of the mentor and the right understanding about the actions in particular situations.

This set can be put under a standard action plan program.

A mentor must make a loud conversation with the novice so that he can practice the things the mentor wants to teach him.

Realize the hidden task

When you want to do some task, you need to act on some things and there will be some actions that are not visible to you.

This invisible task behind a visible task is very important to understand. To develop a novice to understand the hidden task is really a key factor to convert him into a trained person.

Setting the goal

Actions begin after we decide what to achieve. Actions without set goals are useless and random to yield nothing.

Goals decide your action path and each action need to be sequential to perform stipulated work.

This goal setting is vision by your mentor teachers. The mentor implies the importance of a goal in the intern’s mind to avoid directionless actions.

Help to solve problems

When you are a mentor teacher you cannot leave a problem to your novice to solve.

They are not yet mature enough to know what to do. A mentor teacher helps the student to solve the problem by suggesting the potential solutions and discussing implementation.

A good mentor will try to show that the problem was solved by the intern himself.

Plan and teach

The plan includes goal setting, to draw effective strategies, and exhibit them in the classroom.

More will be the plan effective if it is worked upon frequently.

Recognition and implementation of the plan by the novice will help him to achieve his goals well within the timelines.

Teaching and mentoring is a thankless job and one has to understand that you are nurturing the future of the country by teaching or mentoring various students.

It is also a painful job as many students under you might not succeed in their life. But life is made like that to balance everything.

It must be also understood that the teachers and mentors role is very important as they are stationary whereas their students grow away in life.

A person who feels proud about helping many lives to become successful can withstand this category much longer because they know they will be where they are.

Several teachers and mentors get recognition in top people’s speeches about how they become successful under this grooming.

A teacher and mentor of top people must always be proud of their work.