by Willa Siegel
Mentors can offer valuable assistance to Head Start teachers taking college courses.
This story demonstrates that Head Start mentors can play a key role in the professional development of staff working their way towards a degree.
“Kathie,” a teacher at a Head Start program, was taking her first college course. She had been out of high school for 15 years, and had been teaching for the last eight. Because Kathie and her fellow Head Start teachers had been out of school for so long, the college and Head Start administrators decided to start them with a course in child development, a subject that they agreed the teachers already know something about. Starting from a familiar base would be reassuring.
Kathie's assignment was to read a chapter in her Child Development textbook and then write an essay on the social development of young children. She read the chapter, and found that much of the information reinforced what she already knew from eight years of teaching. But, she didn't know how to begin to write an essay.
Luckily, she remembered that her mentor, Dorothy, a teacher on the Head Start staff, had encouraged her to give her a call if she felt lost. So she did. Dorothy and Kathie met the following afternoon at the Head Start center. Dorothy asked Kathie to tell her whether any part of the chapter had special significance for her. Kathie said that she really liked the descriptions of the different kinds of social play. She had observed children in her classroom involved in individual, parallel and cooperative play.
Dorothy asked Kathie to gather some information to prepare to meet again later that week. Kathie was to look for examples of individual, parallel and cooperative play as the children in her class went about their daily activities. Kathie didn't think that would be hard to do. Dorothy suggested that Kathie write three paragraphs: one each focused on a child involved in individual play, parallel play and cooperative play.
Kathie came to the next meeting with the three paragraphs. Dorothy looked them over. After she read the first one, she asked Kathie to talk about what she'd seen. When Kathie did this, Dorothy pointed out that she had used many more descriptive words in her verbal description than she had in her written one. Those descriptive words were helpful in showing that she understood the material. Dorothy then asked Kathie to update the paragraph on individual play, which Kathie did. Dorothy read it and exclaimed, “You've got it!” Kathie beamed!
Dorothy suggested that Kathie elaborate on the next two paragraphs by describing what she saw the way she could tell someone what she saw.
Kathie started writing and, when she was finished, she gave them to Dorothy. Kathie could see that Dorothy was pleased and, even better, Dorothy could see that Kathie was pleased with herself.
“Okay” said Dorothy, “We've got your essay started. You've done the hard part. Now, you just need to write an introduction…. Why are you writing this essay, what do you want to tell in it?” Kathie thought for a few minutes and said, “Children learn to play by playing. They play differently at different times in their lives. Very young children like to play by themselves. They don't share very well. As they get older, they learn to play with other children and really like playing with them.”
Dorothy said, “If you write down what you just said, you've got your introductory paragraph.” This type of mentoring assistance showed Kathie
- she could succeed,
- taught her the skills she needed to tackle this and other similar projects, and
- increased her confidence.
Kathie's Head Start mentor took the perfect approach by engaging her interest and by giving her the support she needed to turn her classroom knowledge into college-level work. Dorothy's mentoring approach worked!
Willa Siegel is an Education Specialist for the Education and Partnerships Division of the Office of Head Start. T: 202-205-4011; E: willa.siegel@acf.hhs.gov
