Abstract

This thesis is a reflective inquiry into my practice as a mentor working with a population of young adults enrolled in a full-time academic program of studies in an adult education center. Although there has been research on mentoring adults who return to school in a university or college setting, very little appears in the research literature about mentoring adolescent and younger adult students returning to school in an adult education program set in a high school environment. This thesis begins to address this gap by presenting a detailed description that captures some of the essence of my practice working with young adults. In this self-study, I describe, examine and reflect on myself as a mentor, using narrative accounts to illustrate my attempts to develop and expand certain mentoring skills and to align my practice more fully with my values. Through the use of stories of my practice infused with poetry and various image texts, I illustrate the use of multi-modal representations as a possible means of further enhancing, expanding, and articulating educational practices (Harris, 1981). This inquiry suggests that a thoughtful program of mentoring integrated into an academic setting can be a viable and empowering form of education for students from disaffected or marginalized populations. Mentoring is depicted as a moral endeavor and a careful mode of listening. Vision or dreams, a sense of purpose, goal setting, faith in one's students, perseverance, and an awareness of the connection of joy and sorrow are central to this analysis of mentoring