RR 92-10 Los Angeles mentors: Local guides or educational companions?
Abstract
Mentor teachers in the Los Angeles Teacher Trainee Program have a daunting responsibility. They are supposed to guide and support new teachers who have no previous professional preparation. This means they must help novices learn to teach while both they and the novices teach full time. How mentor teachers carry out their mentoring responsibilities has consequences for the kind of teachers trainees become and the sort of learning opportunities they extend to students. This report examines what Los Angeles mentors are supposed to do according to the expectations of program officials, what mentors actually do based on their testimony and the researchers observations of their interactions with teacher trainees, and what teacher trainees say mentors do based on interview with them across their two years in the program. The researchers also consider how this version of mentoring adds up as preparation for and induction into teaching.