Forming Others: What Mentoring Can and Can't Be

In his address to the Forum’s Mentoring Workshop held in June, our Head of Lower School Colin Gleason helpfully reframed just what mentoring is—and what it can’t be. Though images of the sculptor, the director, and the master often accompany this rough term of “formation,” Mr. Gleason reminds us that we are really more akin to gardeners, who attend to a living creation with its own freedom and will. So, how can we appreciate this situation and best work with it for the good of our mentees?

Chapters:

• 1:29 Neither the model nor the molder
• 3:39 We cannot ‘do’ the formation
• 5:56 Freedom to choose the good
• 10:19 “Thou mayest” (not thou shalt) “triumph over sin”
• 15:54 Exercising freedom requires formation
• 16:49 Manners: what the act looks like
• 18:57 Reasons: the intention behind the act
• 21:38 Images: how a person chooses the act
• 23:36 A mentor as such an image
• 25:49 Loving the good
• 29:51 Loving the person

References:

• He Knows Not How: Growing in Freedom by Julio Diéguez
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
• Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf by Ben Hogan
• InSideOut Coaching: How Sports Can Transform Lives by Joe Ehrmann

Also on the Forum:

• Seeing Our Boys with Loving Eyes: Not Projects but Persons featuring Tom Royals
• Why Boys Need Mentors featuring Joe Cardenas and Alex Berthé