Origins of Mentoring (Socrates)

Mentoring is a process for the informal transmission of knowledge, social capital, and the psychosocial support perceived by the recipient as relevant to work, career, or professional development; mentoring entails informal communication, usually face-to-face and during a sustained period of time, between a person who is perceived to have greater relevant knowledge, wisdom, or experience (the mentor) and a person who is perceived to have less (the protégé)".(Bozeman 2007)

Mentoring has been used throughout Europe since times of ancient Greece, but the US began using mentoring in the 1970's to help organizations bring in new employees successfully.

Some organizations have paired new people with more veteran in a mentoring relationship. Getting good new employees to stay in their job is more likely under the circumstances where they have a mentor to "show them the ropes", give examples, learn the organization ecosystem. Kaye (2005) claims that the employees paired with a mentor are twice as likely to stay in the organization.

Training mentors is important, as their relationship with their mentee requires certain wisdom that is applied to new contexts over time. Mentoring is a broad term used to indicate a relationship where one is helping the other develop the whole person, and therefore, the relationship and values of trust are key in successful mentoring. (Daloz, 1990) Different techniques are used as appropriate to current mindset of the mentee and the mentor wisdom in its application. Many techniques used in modern organizations come from ancient cultures, especially the Socratic method. (Aubrey 1995)

The Socratic method (also known as method of elenchus, elenctic method, Socratic irony, or Socratic debate), is names after the classical Greek philosopher Socrates. This is a method relying on questioning as logic tests to stimulate inquiry, debate, and critical thinking. Discussion may often represent opposing viewpoints in order to lead each other to contradict their own argument, thus strengthening the other argument. (Jarrett, 1991) The questioner teacher asks many kinds of questions to guide students to discover truth. Questions are designed to test student knowledge, understanding, and to lead students to explore points of their argument, and ultimately to THINK about their argument and its' viability.

The Socratic Method is described as:

“There is no single, generally agreed upon, answer. There is noanswer. All answers are equally correct.” (Stevenson, 2001).

Our earliest known mentors are Socrates and Plato. Plato was a student of Socrates who began the "Academy" based on Socratic method after Socrates' death. The school operated for more than 900 years. (Dowling, 2004) “The Academy served as the model forinstitutions of higher learning until it was closed by the Emperor Justinian in 529 CE, almost one thousand years later.” (Beavers & Planeaux, 2004).The idea of teaching by questioning and argument was to develop critical thinking skills, deep curiosity, fearless questioning and answering. (Maxwell, 2008)

In many traditional classrooms, rote learning or Platonic model is used. In the rote model, students are taught that there is one right, correct answer that they must find to answer a question. The Platonic model encourages all answers as long as there is sufficient explanation and evidence given to support the proposition. (Stevenson, 2001)

Table of philosophical affiliations
http://www2.iastate.edu/~honeyl/621/philosophers.html

References
•Ullmann, Thomas Daniel; Ferguson, Rebecca; Buckingham Shum, Simon and Deakin Crick, Ruth (2011).Designing an online mentoring system for self-awareness and reflection on lifelong learning skills. In: 1stWorkshop on Awareness and Reflection in Personal Learning Environments. In conjunction with the PLE Conference 2011., 11-13 July 2011, Southampton, UK.
•Bozeman, B.; Feeney, M. K. (October 2007). "Toward a useful theory of mentoring: A conceptual analysis and critique". Administration & Society 39 (6): 719–739. doi:10.1177/0095399707304119.
•Daloz, L. A. (1990). Effective Teaching and Mentoring. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. pp. 20.
•Aubrey, Bob and Cohen, Paul (1995). Working Wisdom: Timeless Skills and Vanguard Strategies for Learning Organizations. Jossey Bass. pp. 23, 44–47, 96–97.
•Kaye, Beverly; Jordan-Evans (2005). Love 'Em or Lose Em: Getting Good People to Stay. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. p. 117. ISBN 978-1-57675-327-9.
Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring™, Third Edition
•Dowling, B., Powell, M. and Glendinning, C. (2004), Conceptualising successful partnerships. Health & Social Care in the Community, 12: 309–317. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2524.2004.00500.x
•Jarratt, Susan C. Rereading the Sophists: Classical Rhetoric Refigured. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991., p 83.
•Sprague, Rosamond Kent, The Older Sophists, Hackett Publishing Company (ISBN 0-87220-556-8), p. 5.