Welcome Back

Welcome back to my blog on Daloz’s (1986) book Effective Teaching and Mentoring: Realizing the Transformational Power of Adult Learning Experiences. First, I want to say “thanks for visiting,” while I love this book and do not mind at all to blog about it, knowing that others are stopping by and expressing an interest is inspiring and adds a fire to my willingness to blog. Before I begin the discussion on the book, it would be helpful if you could click on this link

http://www.soundstrue.com/shop/In-the-Flow/3526.productdetails

Open one of the sample music selections which you find there, and answer the following questions,

      “Focus on the reason, why you decided to enter this particular educational program, and where are you now on your educational journey?”

       “How has your education changed your life experience?”

       “Has your outer world (work, family life, other relationships) experienced a shift since your return to school, and if so how?”

Discussions on the above topics are found in Effective Teaching and Mentoring: Realizing the Transformational Power of Adult Learning Experiences. Daloz’s writing flows like a dynamic mountain stream, and he easily combines the social-scientific model of developmental theory with the real-life stories of adult learners and their mentors. The book is the result of research that he performed through the funding of a Federal grant to study how adult learners from Vermont’s rural sections were impacted through their experiences in higher education (p. 252). He incorporates and acknowledges the feminist paradigms of researchers, Giiligan and Belenky, and masterfully connects Joseph Campbell’s mythological “hero’s journey” to the learner’s narratives.

Dramatic life transitions such as widowhood, reaching the glass ceiling in an occupation, divorce, an early 30’s or late-mid-life quest for meaning provide some of the underlying forces for the adult learners in Daloz’s study. I would say that the book moves beyond research or study, as the writer often touches upon the aspects of compassion and care as central to the mentoring and teaching relationship. While I felt at times he defined the journeyers’ stories too closely through his own lenses and developmental theory rather than the students interpreting their own journey, we need to keep in mind the model and premise of the research. I would be most interested in seeing if his later book Mentor (1999) does this differently.

Since Daloz recorded and then transcribed the mentor and mentees narratives as they were told to him  much of what the learners experience is revealed, and at times they do interpret their experiences through their own lenses. Next blog, I will introduce the narratives of three learners, Eric, Emerald, and Anne. All the names in Daloz’s book are pseudonyms.

Thanks for stopping by. ---Ann Courtney, June 18, 2011