Mentor like a farmer

One of my favorite sites on the web is TED. There are hundreds of excellent talks presenting new ideas and ways of thinking of things. One of my most favorite talks is by creativity and educational expert Ken Robinson.

This presentation talks about the need to revolutionize the educational system because the current system was created to solve 20th century educational problems rather than 21st century needs. The talk is brilliant and funny and the speaker is engaging and authentic.

The reason I post this here is because there are several critical points he makes that directly apply to mentoring. As I mentioned in my last post mentoring is usually incorrectly thought of as a one way street between the teacher (mentor) and the student (mentee) where the teacher needs to teach something to the student and send them on their way. In fact what some of the best mentors have the ability to do is to re-frame a person's thoughts and approach to a situation and create a space for them to nurture new ideas and approaches. Much like a farmer who can't "make" their crops grow but rather create the conditions for crop growth so to a mentor must create an environment for the mentee to experiment and grow. A mentor is not there just to "teach" them something.

I hope you enjoy the talk and see the many parallels to mentoring that I see!

Watch it here:
Ken Robinson's talk at TED