Minister Faust
Guest Contributor

For this post, we’re offering it in audio form – simply click on the link below and listen! Or, if you’d prefer to read, a shortened transcript follows.

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I’ve worked with children and youth for more than 20 years. In that time I’ve been a child care worker, a youth activist, a junior high and high school teacher, a youth leadership coach, and a director of youth community theatre. I’ve made plenty of mistakes in that time, but I’m also happy to have learned a few things, things I’d like to share with you now.

My wife, who was a social worker for ten years and is now a psychologist, was very wise to remind me that when it comes to mentorship, nothing matters more than a strong personal bond between mentor and student. Over years in my role as a broadcaster, I’ve asked numerous guests, from famous actors and writers to political activists, “Who was your favourite teacher and why?” regardless of how you define “teacher.” I’ve received many touching and hilarious responses, but a couple of things stand out: nobody ever says, “This person was my favourite because she was the smartest,” or “He was my favourite because he was an expert.” My guests almost always stressed that their favourite teachers made them feel special, helped them to realise they had ability they didn’t know they had, believed in them, and guided them to become more personally able to reach their goals.

In the archetypes of myth that show up in popular culture, those types of mentors are beloved characters. Given my age and generation, the two who stand out most are Ben Kenobi from Star Wars and Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid. And those examples force us to see something else about the personal bond. Ben guides Luke, and Mr. Miyagi guides Daniel. Both youth men are in pain, missing their fathers, and yearning not just for connection to something eternal (the Force or the martial arts), but for what an adult can give them: time, patience, affection, loyalty, sacrifice, and wonder. Yet each mentor, until he commits to his student, is living is isolation, is incomplete, is in need of someone with whom to share, is yearning for the chance to be loyal, affectionate and giving.

So that means that if your life is too full–if your career, your family, your hobbies or other pursuits take all or nearly all of your time, now is not the time to be a mentor, unless you’re able to bring your student into your archetypal garden to tend to the flowers, roots and trees with you. If you can’t, maybe it’s just that you can’t right now. In the meantime, you can keep reading up on mentorship so that when the time is right, you’ll be more ready.

So all of what I have to tell you today is based on my wife’s advice: the personal connection is the key. (more…)

Bonnie Kaserman, University of British Columbia
Guest Contributor

Once a month I head out from my apartment in the evening, directions to someone’s home usually scrawled on a piece of scrap paper. Each month, a group of women geographers, composed of graduate students, researchers, postdoctoral fellows and faculty, gather in someone’s living room. I am one of these women. We meet in order to discuss our gendered experiences in the discipline, to learn from one another, and to enhance our understanding of academic culture so that we might make positive changes in the academy.  We also laugh.  A lot.

Almost a decade ago, women from the Geography departments of both the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University began these strategic meetings. Today, the group continues to be a vibrant space of mentoring, and our group is one of several throughout Canada and the United States. These groups have formed in response to gendered departmental experiences and to inequities documented within the discipline and the academy. Groups are autonomous and differ in organizational structures, membership and activities, but we share a common goal of promoting the participation of women in Geography.  As such, we share the moniker Supporting Women in Geography (SWIG).

I’ve participated in SWIG groups since I was an undergraduate Geography major. I am now completing my PhD in the discipline, and mentoring within the SWIG community remains one of the highlights of my academic life.  In SWIG we frame mentoring as feminist praxis, that is, to work with women, people of color, and other groups marginalized from and within the academy in order to negotiate the academic system and to make change within the academy.

Participating in SWIG has, for me, brought to the fore two questions regarding equity: How do we make sustainable change? How do we make sustainable the process of making change? (more…)