Anonymous SIL Literacy and Education Mentor in Africa
Somehow I couldn’t shake the feeling that we didn’t have the best or right goals for my mentee, even though she seemed happy with the progress we were making on them. What to do?
I’d heard somewhere that it was good to evaluate the mentoring relationship half-way through its term. So we planned to do that. Michael Jemphrey graciously pointed me to mentoring relationship evaluation forms on the Mentoring Matters website for both mentor and mentee.
We each filled them separately before meeting to discuss them at one of our monthly mentoring meetings. We each read through the other’s. My mentee was able to glean my “unspoken feeling” from the rating I gave on “I am satisfied with the mentoring relationship overall.” And then the answer I had given under the question, “Please share more about your experience in your own words” was a springboard for us to discuss her goals and to figure out where we could go, and others we could ask (her previous mentor, her supervisor) to add some more pertinent goals. We then did that at our next meeting.
I’m happier that we are working towards things that count in developing her competencies, alongside her self-identified goals.
Reflection questions:
- How do you and your mentee/mentor evaluate your mentoring relationship from time to time?
- Would it be helpful to try out the forms mentioned in this post and use them as a springboard for a conversation about your mentoring relationship?
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