Model, Mirror, Mentor
3 roles to transform how we teach and parent
In the best and the most troubling ways, we all unconsciously carry on the teaching and parenting methods we received as kids. What parent has not found themselves parroting a line from their own parents? The same goes for teachers. How could it be otherwise, when we have tens of thousands of hours’ worth of experience being taught and parented?
The challenge comes when we want to change. Those thousands of hours of “practice” are a gravitational force pulling us back toward the way things were. And the gravity seems even more intense in times of stress or anxiety. As a mentor of mine put it, when we’re stressed we don’t reach for what works — we reach for what is familiar.
So how might we shift? If you feel stuck in some of these older patterns of teaching or parenting, then I’d like to suggest three roles we can have in our sights. These aren’t the only roles we need to play, but I think they put names on ways to evolve into more trusting, effective guides to young people. Here goes…
A Model
Let’s start with the role we play whether we mean to or not. At every moment of every day, we are broadcasting our inner feelings, thoughts, mindsets, and worldview. And every moment that a child is around us, they’re receiving that broadcast loud and clear. A young child is absorbing it as the very definition of their reality. A tween or teen may push back on it, but that only confirms how powerful it is. What you say to a young person is only a thin layer of words on top of this deep and wide broadcast of who you are.
We probably all know that body language “leaks” emotions that we might wish to keep hidden. But less obvious perhaps is that over time, those witnessing us build a pattern in their minds of how our emotions correlate to the events around us. That pattern is a direct transmission of our worldview and mindsets. For example, consider that at all times you are sharing:
What you think kids can handle — and to what extent you trust them
Which emotions are most acceptable to you
The unspoken social hierarchy you perceive around you
How you relate to struggle or failure
…and much, much more.
This realization can be terrifying, especially in times when we are bravely trying to hold it all together. But I think there is something deeply encouraging here. It tells us that work on ourselves is not a luxury — it’s how we become better parents and teachers.
What would you do differently, if you assumed that your views of yourself and the world are the actual curriculum you teach?
The educators and parents I know are among the least selfish people out there, but this makes me want to urge us to be a bit more selfish. Selfish in the sense of setting time aside for our self-renewal. Finding our playfulness, our weirdness, and our lost-in-the-flow moments of creativity turns us into the most beautiful curriculum for the young people around us.
A Mirror
We model whether we want to or not — but this next skill, to be a mirror, is one we can grow into if we choose. Simply put, the role of a mirror is to help someone see themselves more clearly. And this matters tremendously, because one of the fundamental ingredients in human growth is self-awareness.
To act as a mirror, you reflect back something you see in your student or child. When offered with kindness, this becomes information that a child can use.
You might mirror back what you see them pour their hearts into — “wow, you are so focused and passionate about designing structures in Minecraft!” Or a way they have of relating — “I notice your friends really open up to you and trust you to listen to them.” Or a pattern — “You seem so relaxed and happy after you play basketball.” And while these are examples of mirroring positive moments, in moderation it can also be valuable to reflect back someone’s struggle, with empathy and acceptance.
This matters because an adolescent’s job is to construct an authentic social self. When you mirror back to them, you’re giving them hard-earned experimental data about how they’re showing up in the social world, and where their talents and ‘edges’ of growth may be. In other words, you’re helping them form their identity with more awareness. And you’re offering something that anyone, whether 13 or 53, can appreciate: the feeling of being seen.
A Mentor
When I was fresh out of college and starting to explore a path in education, I had the luck to meet a group of innovative Israeli educators, and they invited me to travel to Israel to see their schools in action.
What I saw there permanently lifted my sense of what’s possible in education. This team, led by an educator named Yaacov Hecht, had launched a network of what they called democratic schools around Israel. They were democratic because students could vote on nearly every aspect of the school, from curriculum to the selection of teachers. And they were not the fearful Lord of the Flies scenario many would imagine. I visited nearly 20 of these schools, driving from one town to the next, and I still think of many of them as the most vibrant learning places I’ve ever seen.
Given serious power, students took their power seriously. But the power worked in large part because of the presence of mentors. At each school I visited, I heard people reference the term honech and then struggle to translate it, calling it something like a close personal advisor, or perhaps, a mentor. In these schools, with such degrees of freedom that some students might otherwise fall through the cracks or never really challenge themselves, the role of this mentor was critical.
This stable connection with one adult offered an example of a healthy and engaged human (modeling), a chance to be seen (mirroring), and then two key functions that to me define great mentorship. The first is to stabilize — to help you find the strength and insight to face your current challenges. The second is to challenge — to call you out of your comfortable place and into the potential they see in you. What a gift it is, at any age of life, to have a person working to offer you stability and challenge!
Summing up: Of teachers and carpenters
In one of my very favorite education books, An Ethic of Excellence, author Ron Berger makes a fascinating comparison between the way we train teachers and the way we train carpenters. As both a carpenter and a school teacher, he has some insight into the matter.
Traditionally, new teachers are trained by taking a series of courses on education, combined with subject-matter content in some cases. Then on their first day “on the job”, they show up in a classroom where they are, likely, the only adult in the room. Under the watchful eyes of 20 to 40 students, they need to figure out how to actually turn all those theories into an effective practice. It goes without saying that this experience is terrifying and overwhelming for most, and many teachers leave the profession permanently.
Carpenters spend far less time in formal training in classrooms. They learn skills by continually practicing them under the supervision of master builders, progressing from apprentice to journeyman. As Berger describes, the more experienced builders demonstrate, advise, and critique, responding to regularly-updated evidence of the new carpenter’s work. In other words, they act as models of excellence, they mirror back what they see in the trainee, and they provide mentorship in the craft.
Which method would you rather learn in?
I don’t think many of us would choose the trial-by-fire way we invite teachers into the profession.
So let’s take a page from the carpenters, from the Israeli democratic schools, and from many other models of excellence. What if you gave intentional focus to the way you model, to the ability to mirror, and to the craft of mentorship? Whether as parent or teacher, coach or uncle, you may find that it opens new doors. To paraphrase Heinlein, rote instruction is for computers — this kind of guidance is what makes a human whole.
In Other News…
For the rest of that Heinlein quote, since it is so delicious: “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” -Robert A. Heinlein
For those in need of magic: If you are teaching or parenting middle schoolers, or see that on the horizon, check out my book Finding the Magic in Middle School. It’s about how to change the story of middle school, using developmental science, from the worst time of life into one of the most fruitful and fascinating. I hope you enjoy it, and I always welcome feedback and questions!
And for those in need of a diving board: A side project in recent years has been the creation of the Diving Boards curriculum for advisories, so named because the aim is to help you get into the water, into meaningful conversations that build social and emotional intelligence. It’s a lightweight curriculum living as a deck of cards, each one a prompt to start a quality advisory conversation. I’ve just finished editing the third edition, and expect to have it available by early October. Details and waitlist sign up here if you’re interested!
Great advice, and I love Heinlein.