In their book, The New College Classroom, authors Davidson and Katopodis attempt to provide a framework for educators to create student-centered learning environments that benefit learners and faculty alike, as they offer a scaffolded approach to building community and fostering active learning.
Structured into two main sections that the authors named Changing Ourselves and Changing Our Classrooms, their suggestions for building an inclusive teaching practice begin with an exploration of the educator as an agent of change. The authors stress the value of moving away from old, hierarchical models of teaching into a more generous landscape that puts the learner at the center of the conversation. In order to achieve this goal, the text focuses on encouraging peer-to-peer engagements in the learning environment–with faculty as facilitators of learning who collaborate with their students to build environments of curiosity, trust, and critical thinking–while also fostering intersectional relationships that offer support to learners of all types.
Given their claims and in keeping with their suggested approach, it would stand to reason that within that first section, Changing Ourselves, Davidson and Katopodis would spend some time looking at the reasons for change, the ways to change, and the opportunity to conceive of a new relationship for the educator and learner both in and outside of the classroom. This roughly outlines the first three chapters, with that last component being addressed in Chapter 3: Teaching is Mentoring.
The chapter opens by situating mentoring within historical and social contexts–introducing the topic as both a theoretical concept and as an action born of collaborative purpose. Davidson and Katopodis make reference to the origins of Mentor in Greek Mythology and in Homer’s Odyssey, defining mentorship as a way of serving as a guide, providing helpful structure, and sharing or uncovering knowledge in the process. As they continue to frame the purpose, value, and need for this approach, the authors go on to incorporate the idea of caring for the soul, as explained by bell hooks in Teaching to Transgress–and they additionally include the work of Professors Maha Bali’s pedagogy of care and Yusef Waghid’s use of the political philosophy of Ubuntu as they work to build a framework for understanding the connections between teaching and mentoring–with the transparent goal of encouraging the reader to see them as equivalent. All of this occurs within the first two pages of the chapter–serving to provide a mix of names and concepts that the reader might connect with–but not in ways that allow for more than a brief introduction to a topic that is much larger–and much more complex.
What follows this initial framing is a series of resources and examples that read a bit like case study summaries, within the context of the following section headers:
- What Do I Want Students to Call Me?
- Prioritizing Student Wellness
- How Can I Be Personable Without Getting Too Personal?
- Office Hours That Empower Students
- What Happens If a Student Tells Me About Sexual Harassment?
- How Do I Address Racial and Other Forms of Discrimination?
- How Do I Support Students with Cognitive and Physical Disabilities?
- How Can I Be a Good Mentor to Returning Students?
In each of these sections, what the reader will find is a series of questions, suggestions, problems, and resources that provide examples of how the authors–or other faculty members–have addressed these topics in their own experiences and at their own institutions.
Given that each of these topics could truly be their own larger text, and given that the entire chapter is only fifteen pages long, it’s clear that the intention is not to provide comprehensive responses to these prompts–rather, to inspire the reader to engage in a wider range of considerations than what might have been presented to them as part of their own instructional process or any kind of coaching or training they might have received on the topic of learning to teach.
That said, if the reader is an educator who is already familiar with–or even immersed in–the development of curriculum and classroom spaces that focus on learner-centered teaching, this entire chapter could read as an obvious assertion, not offering much more than examples of what the reader might already know or have already experienced as part of their own evidence-based practice. However, if the reader is an early-stage educator–or, conversely, someone who has been in the trenches for some time and is struggling to adapt to new ways of thinking, teaching, and learning–these resources could hold value.
If nothing else, the authors provide a bit of an amuse-bouche on the topics outlined here that should hopefully inspire a desire to dig deeper and enjoy more from the vast buffet of information and research available on topics including learner-centered teaching, communities of practice, and collaborative learning. The chapter, while brief and at some points incomplete, does provide a catalyst for educators as mentors to examine their own ability to practically apply theoretical knowledge to the role of student-focused education in any environment, not just those that fit a more traditional model. And that is certainly good. Furthermore, there isn’t an educator / mentor / student that wouldn’t benefit from embedding an intentional practice of care for the self as a priority within the space of learning, development, and personal growth. The focus on the need to prioritize boundaries in an always-on world is a healthy one, and one that should be incorporated into wider conversations about health and wellness as part of the academic model.
In essence, while a light read–and one intended more for a specific audience (those just starting out or those feeling stuck), one of the most valuable resources shared within the chapter was a series of prompts from designer Bruce Mau’s book MC24: Bruce Mau’s 24 Principles for Designing Massive Change in Your Life and Work–which outlined several questions that support the role of mentoring as an expressive way to examine the needs of the self. Mau wrote a guide entitled How to Be a Good Mentor: The 3-Minute Manifesto that shares eight questions, and can serve as a solid place to start any conversation on the topic with a fellow educator-mentor–or even use to draft responses within the space of thoughtful reflection. They are:
- What kind of mentor do you hope to be?
- What special talents do you have to offer?
- What can you give?
- What are your boundaries?
- Who are your students?
- What kind of students do you work with best?
- Where can you improve?
- If you were your own ideal mentor, how would you mentor the student you?
Spending some time with these questions can uncover some interesting responses. In terms of the goal of remaining student-centered, one of the more telling outcomes can be seen in the comparison between replies to Question 1 and Question 8. In order to maintain a learner-centered approach, this comparison can yield the kinds of framing that educator-mentors will want to be mindful of as they work to build learning environments that reflect the learners and not simply themselves. After all, while this chapter (and this book) tends to read a bit light–or like an introduction-only approach to a topic that requires much more depth–some of the strongest reasons for allowing the framework to drive anyone who teaches or mentors into a further examination of the subjects presented by the authors can be summarized by the final paragraph that Davidson and Katopodis offer in Chapter 3:
Teaching is mentoring, and mentoring is teaching. As with other forms of active learning, sometimes the single greatest gift we can offer is knowing when to support students, when to advise them, when to help them take their skills to the next level, and when to honor the knowledge the experience they bring and then step out of their way.
(Davidson and Katopodis, 54.)
Davidson, Cathy N., and Christina Katopodis. “Chapter 3: Teaching Is Mentoring.” The New College Classroom, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2022, pp. 39–54.