Dear First name / friend
Mentorship + Teaching: Responsibilities to ourselves and our students
Elizabeth here!
It is a huge responsibility to take on mentorship - to share opinions, to guide someone gracefully and with humility, and to create mutual trust. And it is especially hard to do when you feel less then yourself or feel vulnerable or insecure.
This week was convocation for the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto and on the same day and time at the other end of the city of Toronto, the University of Guelph-Humber held convocation and my own daughter had the privilege of being conferred a degree in Kinesiology (yes there were happy tears!).
This is truly the best part of teaching in academia - seeing everything come together, witnessing families coming together and celebrating their person, being in a community of people celebrating the passing on of wisdom, knowledge, and skills and knowing that while each person has struggled, they have somehow figured out how to reach that goal they set out to achieve. It was also really special to meet my daughter's mentors and teachers and have a chance to thank them for all their work.
When things seem like they are frustrating and academia feels hard, convocation reveals the best part of mentorship + teaching. It also reminds us of the huge responsibility that is sharing our knowledge and our experience with others.
“…there is no innate human inclination to be controlling. What there is in a “controlling” personality is deep anxiety…the drive to control is not an innate trait but a coping style.”
This made me think of all the teaching that is done from a place of control OF the student and their process.
This teaching likely comes from our own experiences and anxieties over the lack of autonomy we had as young artists of a certain generation.
This kind of mentorship + teaching then does not allow self trust for the student and at the same time, does not allow room for the teacher to “fail” in their efforts.
This kind of mentorship + teaching is exhausting and ultimately leads to burn out.
As I head into some holiday time in July (read: I'll be in the garden or be writing grants on my laptop on the patio), I am committed to digging deeper.
Where are my own anxieties and vulnerabilities as a mentor and teacher and how does that show up in my teaching?
Thanks for reading. And next time….we will talk Canadian grants and continue the entrepreneurship conversation!
