"Mentoring in Literature and, More Importantly, in Life" Guest Blogger...

Posted on 04/04/2011 @ 02:51 PM

By Ronald Newman, Ph.D.UM English Prof. (Retired)
rnewman9@hotmail.com
Tel. (305) 724-3343

I guess it is not surprising that one of CMF’s five focal points, mentoring, would appeal to a retired English professor’s ideals and continuing commitment to education in its broadest sense. After 35 years of teaching at UM, my impulse toward mentoring has found one outlet (beyond helping my children and grandchildren) in Miami-Dade County’s Guardian ad Litem program, where my wife, Becky, and I have welcomed opportunities to help abused, abandoned, and neglected children, from toddlers to high school students.

But when I read CMF blogs and its position statement on mentoring, a whole new set of opportunities beckoned. The CMF affirmation “Expanding Access to Effective Mentoring Programs in Florida” (including its statistics showing measurable improvements in mentored children’s lives) connected with two major mentoring aims in my professional life: (1) serving as a role model (with intermittent success) for undergraduates and graduate students and (2) demonstrating in countless classes the influences on fictional children of mentors—good and bad.

What would have been the fate of Oliver Twist, for example, if the evil Fagin rather than the benevolent Mr. Brownlow had served as his role model? Similar questions could be asked about literature written specifically for children. How would little Mowgli in Kipling’s Jungle Book have fared if the lovable but irresponsible Baloo (the bear) had held sway instead of the less lovable but more responsible Bagheera (the panther)? How would Pinocchio have ended without Jiminy Cricket? The illustrations are endless.

More directly, however, CMF’s focus on mentoring has reminded me of my own responsibilities over 35 years to undergraduates and to graduate students, most of the latter preparing for their own careers as teachers. As in parenting, teaching requires some decisions as tough and unpopular as they are effective. I didn’t exactly treasure the moniker hung on me by students over the years, The Smiling Executioner. But it often seemed to me that one could execute a sacred trust either as a knowledgeable, responsible caring adult or as a careless “pal” running in a popularity contest. To be sure, the trust at the foundation of any mentoring relationship must be inspired by the mentor’s warmth as well as his or her discriminating judgment. But when, for example, scholastic cheating is at issue, or even when adequacy of evidence is at stake, a mentor who opts for sentimentalism rather than ethics does no favor for a graduate student—or for a child. When, for another example, a doctoral student is cowed by reams of political correctness in scholarly journals to include or exclude a literary piece in a syllabus, or when a child is cowed by peers to accept ethnic stereotypes, the mentor’s responsibility should be clear: to help build confidence and character.

Responsible mentoring is not easy. But for the mentor the gratification can be immeasurable. And for the child, as the CMF statement on mentoring affirms, not only can the benefits be measureable, but the consequences can last a lifetime.