a mentoring idea

[Harrison Owen]

At 05:57 PM 6/29/00 +0000, you wrote:

>Here's what I imagined today:  What if all the mentors and all the new
>teachers at a particular site (say, 25 of each) attended a half-day (or
>more if we can) Open Space to start things off.  The focus groups would be
>convened around the needs of the new teachers.  Useful relationships would
>be formed, but not in a one-to-one fashion; the new teachers would leave
>that event with the names and contact info for ALL the mentors, and with
>relationships with several of them based on their OS interactions.
>
> From then on, the new teachers would choose when, how, and from whom they
> would need help.  Mentors could be paid for being available, and,
> hopefully, for attending regular mini-open-spaces with the new teachers
> throughout the school year.
>
>So:  Has anyone else done this type of thing as an alternative structure
>of a mentorship?
>
>And, here's my specific question:  During the first OS, I am considering
>inviting only the new teachers to convene focus groups.  On one level this
>feels heretical to the spirit of Open Space.  But on another level I want
>to deliberately break the set-up of the mentors being the experts.  I want
>the whole program to be oriented around the needs of the new teachers, not
>around the expertise of the mentors.  In my current thinking, requesting
>that the mentors not convene focus groups but instead to simply attend the
>ones to which they feel they can contribute the most would serve to
>empower the new teachers.  WOULD YOU DO THIS?  Or is it a bad controlling idea?

I think this could be wonderful! And I would suggest two things. a) Try for
a whole day -- it will really pay off. b) Don't restrict who can post. This
is not about keeping Open Space "pure" -- although I guess there is some of
that -- but mostly because I am sure everybody will have value to add, and
the Law of Two feet will take care of the difference. To make all this
work, I think the theme should be a lot broader then just the needs of the
new teachers -- How about something like "Building a school System we would
all like to be a part of" (and please forgive the dangling preposition )

I once did an OS for a corporation (different venue but similar issue) that
began the orientation program for new employees. We had about 100
participants roughly divided between old hands and new comers. The theme
was Building X Corp that swerves all the stakeholders. Folks really got
into it AND the mentoring relationships just naturally formed. The one
thing to watch out about is that the new folks might take their
contributions seriously and actually think they had something of value to
add -- Could be a bummer for all those who thought they knew how to design
the program and determine the content ( smile).

Harrison


Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, MD 20854
USA
phone 301-469-9269
fax 301-983-9314
website
www.mindspring.com/~owenhh
Open Space Institute websites
www.openspaceworld.org
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