Date of Award

12-1-2012

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Specialization

Communication and Leadership

School or Department

School of Leadership Studies

First Advisor

Dr. Michael Hazel

Second Advisor

Dr.Horsman John

Abstract

Mentoring is an educational process wherein a more experienced person takes time and invests it in a less experienced person in guiding that person in areas of professional life, academic life, and personal life. In today’s high schools, students need teachers to guide them through both their academic lives and also their tumultuous personal lives. Through the Phenomenological Tradition, teachers can mentor students by sharing their stories and listening to the stories of their mentee students. By utilizing social penetration, teacher mentors, through the use of interpersonal communication skills, learn more about their students’ personal lives while divulging more of their personal lives in order to aid in the mentoring process. In this study, participants in successful mentor relationships and junior high and high school teachers were interviewed in order to ascertain what attributes mentors and mentees need in order to be involved in successful mentor relationships, what pitfalls are possible in mentor relationships, and how mature both mentors and mentees need be in order to be effective in mentor relationships. Through these interviews, the research found that the teacher mentor must maintain his/her authority as a teacher and that the teacher must possess enough integrity and maturity to create a relationship wherein the student mentee understands that the teacher mentor is his/her teacher, not his/her friend.

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