Having a mentor can be a valuable experience and is an idea that some schools here have adopted. They bring in experts in certain areas and these experts take young people under their wing to teach, encourage and help them in their chosen path. It also works well at college age group, or in fact at any age.
I have been on the receiving end of a mentorship as well as on the giving end, both in areas of writing. In each case it was a worthwhile relationship.
A mentor needs not only to be someone who is further along the path but also someone that the recipient of the mentorship gets along with. It’s no good if there is an uneasy relationship. The mentor and their prodigy need to be on a similar wave length and be able to talk things over.
At the same time, the recipient of the mentorship needs to be able to accept constructive criticism. There is no point if the mentor can’t be honest in comments. Sadly, all some people ever want to hear about is that their work is great. They don’t really want to hear about the things that need to be revised or changed.
If that is the situation, where the person cannot accept constructive feedback, then the situation is doomed failure. That does not mean the mentor has to be slavishly taken as always being followed without question, but they should at least be able to express concerns or reservations without the other person getting into a snit. Unless we learn to take constructive criticism in the spirit it is meant, we are not gong to get far.
On the other hand, there is no need for the mentor to be brutal in their comments. The comments need to be honest and objective, but comments also need to be tempered with tact. When this occurs the person will be more ready to accept the mentor’s suggestions.
The interesting thing is with a mentorship that as you teach someone else you are actually learning yourself and honing your own skills, so it benefits both involved in the mentorship arrangement.
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