Mentors and Proteges: A Critical Review of the Literature

Mentors and Proteges: A Critical Review of the Literature, Merriam






Currently researching into the role a mentor has within the education setting and as a school leader.
Some key points I discovered from the article:
1. Effective mentors generally had themselves a critical mentor in their early stages of their careers
2. Mentoring within adult development requires a powerful interaction to exist between the two participants.
3. Mentor must be experienced, loving, be demonstrating quality practice and prioritise the shaping of the protégé/ mentee
4. Levinson suggests mentors and protégé need to have a common understanding about who they are as educators and the type of educator they want to be
5. Levinson suggests ideally there should be 8-15 year age gap between the two participants
6. Sheehy suggests the absence of a mentor has a huge impact
7. Sheehy suggests all those whom had gained recognition during their careers had a mentor at some point earlier on.


The underlying question for researchers appears to be not how mentoring leads to material success but how it relates to adult development and adult learning?


This leads me to consider the following questions which apply to any mentoring relationship regardless of occupation;
1. If the research demonstrates it is an important element for the mentor and protégé to share similar personality traits, should organisations then be allowing protégés to chose their own mentors? And what impact will this have on the quality of performance the protégé can achieve? 


2. In education does an influential teacher play the same role as a mentor?


Interesting read, would love to hear your thoughts on the article.