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On Mentors


In my first year of teaching I was sitting in the teachers' lounge as another teacher expounded about one of those periodic administrivial admonishments; in this case, not to allow students to leave class to buy breakfast in the cafeteria and bring it back to class.  Lou exclaimed that he knew what was best for his students. If they couldn’t think about schoolwork due to hunger, he’d send them to get food, etc.
I thought this guy understands why we’re here.  He really cares about his students. He isn’t mindlessly obeying arbitrary rules.  We had no mentor program in those days; I decided that I would look to him as an unofficial mentor.
Within a month, I learned he`was fired, and the Principal was telling us mysteriously, “Lou needs our support right now.”  I soon found out that he’d been having sex with two different students (at different times) in a janitor’s closet, and when the first student found out about the second, she revealed it.
I never had any other, more official, or unofficial, mentor.
In later years I never joined any mentoring program as they came and went.
About twelve years ago, I was at a pretty disillusioned stage of my teaching career.  I spent most of a year paying minimal attention to my classwork, instead entertaining myself with a series of prank pamphlets (the fake club project) and joke blogs (the Dark Trail).  
At the beginning of the next school year, my department head pulled me aside and asked me to unofficially act as a mentor to Chris, a second-year teacher in our department.  I reluctantly agreed.
Later that day I told Chris I was his mentor.  He replied, “I’ve known that since last year.”
So, during probably the least effective year of my career, without knowing it, I had been a mentor.  

At least I wasn’t screwing students in the closet.

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