Reflecting on Mentoring Young Writers

Next week I will again be in the classroom every day of the week, for five weeks. I will also begin working as a tutor of students attending Queen Elizabeth Public School. With the opportunity to be doing so much teaching on the near horizon, it is important that today I take a step back to reflect on lessons I have learned from mentoring at Hawthorne Public School.

In many ways, the mentoring experience at Hawthorne was unlike most experiences I expect to have in classrooms in the future. Working with a student only once a week for less than an hour, and only for four weeks in total, is likely to be one of the most short-term teaching commitments I will have engaged in. Further still, its focus on a single student, with interactions entirely based around a single, bi-directional relationship, while ideal in many ways, is far from the reality of teaching in public schools today.

This being said, while it may be unlike how I will be able to spend most of my time in schools, it was very much akin to the work I am about to do as a tutor. Working one-on-one with students is liberating in many ways. It allows for an easy, organic development of the relationship between student and teacher. With one relationship, it is also much easier to informally assess for a student's growth as a learner.

I was really glad I took the time in my first meeting with my student writer to share and learn about one another on more personal terms. Having done this, I felt the learning process was facilitated for weeks into the future. As I move into working as a tutor, I am excited to form new relationships with students, to share and learn with/from them in our first meetings and going forward, and to help them grow as learner through this positive, student-centred relationship.