Summary

“Big Questions, Worthy Dreams: Mentoring Young Adults in Their Search for Meaning, Purpose, & Faith” by Sharon Daloz Parks.

Pages – 288
Publisher – Jossey-Bass
Copyright – 2000

Summary

The first question someone may ask is “Why Mentoring”. The reason I chose this book is multi-fold. First, I think we are naturally mentors in the areas in which we teach. We are not just teaching technical skills to our learners, but may be teaching them life skills and different ways of thinking about things. Secondly, and most important, I am a mentor to many kids and I really want to fine tune what I am representing and teaching them, and understand the benefits and challenges of being this type of role model in the lives of children.

A good case in point – in 1997, I was a new employee at American Express, and was in my early 20’s. I had no clue about life or the challenges associated with “growing up”. I also honestly had no clue as to what I was going to do with my career. There was a person by the name of Sandy who helped me identify, by her leadership, mentoring, and demonstration of professional behavior, the qualities of a professional educator. She ultimately moved on to educational leadership and I (10 years later) moved onto instruction.

The book itself starts the first several chapters speaking of philosophy of mentorship. It begins with a discussion of faith – knowledge of the unknown. It also discusses how young adults are constantly in a state of evolution and are constantly using their “meaning making skills” to redefine meaning in their lives. What the mentor does, in the authors’ opinion, is help the young adult through this process of meaning development. The relationship that the young adult has with its surroundings – community, self, world, and reality – is what perpetuates the change of meaning the author is speaking of. When there is a loss, it is the goal of the mentor to help the mentee rediscover reality after loss.

The link to adult education that can be made is that the new learner, regardless of the learning environment, usually has experienced some sort of loss in their lives, whether it is unemployment or change of geographical location.

The rest of the first 7 chapters mainly discuss the importance of relativism in the meaning making skills of the young adult, the importance of a community (It takes a village – style mentality), the importance of interpendence with society and the familial unit of the young adult, and the imagination of what is possible for the young adult. The author discusses in somewhat depth Piaget’s meaning-making theories and schemas which young adults use in recreating meaning. Again, for the adult learner, this would mean that they are building on what they have already learned in previous learning environments.

I think Chapter 8 does a fantastic job of just really getting to the heart of what a mentor looks like, thinks, and acts. I am very touched to see that some of the qualities of a successful mentor – positivity, recognition, holistic thought processes, and seeing the big picture – are qualities I already have. (There’s always room for improvement).

Chapter 9 goes into the environments where we can see mentoring take place – higher education, workplace, families, and religious faith communities. It does a good job of discerning not necessarily what qualifies as a mentor, but how the process of mentoring applies to each of the listed environments.

Finally, Chapter 10 discusses culture as a mentor. The thought here is that the norms of the culture where the mentee is in really define what should be practiced. I think in this environment, the culture and demonstration by more senior individuals demonstrates how the mentee should or should not behave. In this situation, anyone can be a mentor by demonstration. In a workplace environment, that would be the person’s leader, seniors in the same position as the mentee, and others who are considered experts. Again, this does not appear to be a formal mentor relationship as previously discussed, but rather an informal process by which the mentee is slowly developing their skill set by observation.

The point here is that whether or not the mentor relationship takes place in a workplace, learning, or social environment, the same activities take place, and the importance of the mentor relationship is roughly the same – helping the mentee make new meaning of the world around them.

The point of discussion here is – What qualities do you see a mentor needing? Give examples of your mentoring as either a mentor or mentee, whether it is formal or informal. How has the mentee benefited from the relationship? How has the mentor?