Wisdom never lies. The Odyssey, Book II, Line 320, Homer
When Odysseus left home to fight in the Trojan War, he appointed the care and education of his son Telemachus to his friend, Mentor, a wise man. Hence, the name “Mentor” has come to mean someone who imparts wisdom to and shares knowledge with someone less experienced. It is one of many names taken from Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey and turned into modern day terminology. Others include: Odyssey (a wandering journey or quest), Achilles (heel and tendon), Hector (bully), Nestor (counselor), Trojan Horse (a ruse) and Athens, (seat of great learning in both Greece and Georgia).
The English, always quick to borrow words from any language to expand the mother tongue, added “mentor” to the vocabulary in 1616, the year Shakespeare died. Americans expanded the concept by turning noun to verb and adding it to the dictionary in 1976.
Anyone who has ever been under the tutelage of a mentor knows the difference such one on one instruction can make. Often, those who benefit from the wisdom of a mentor turn around and share the knowledge gleaned with someone else.
An educator, who acknowledges he has learned from several mentors and who continues to serve as a mentor, says, “I’ve seen many students benefit from having a mentor. Sometimes, they just need someone to listen to them, to help them think things through so they can make good decisions.”
Two students from my first teaching assignment in Texas, both professional writers, shared some of their thoughts about mentors with me. Recently as a bit of advice under the heading “Walk the Talk,” Susan Tiberghien sent my former student, a retired UN communications specialist, this quote by 13th century philosopher and theologian Meister Eckhart: “When the soul wishes to experience something, she throws an image of the experience out before her and enters into her own image.”
Touched by the gentle, but persuasive reminder, my former student reflects, “Although I have been fortunate to have had many mentors in my long life, one in particular stands out. Today, a bright-minded, warmhearted near-octogenarian, American-born Susan Tiberghien founded the (meanwhile well-known) Geneva Writers’ Group in 1993, (which brings together over 150 English-language writers from 25 countries). I joined the GWG in 1998 while living in Switzerland and was immediately drawn to Susan’s wise-and-affectionate personality. Over the past 15 years, she has not only published three memoirs of her own; she has been a source of creative inspiration for others (including me), not to mention a real-life role model, offering everything from generous hospitality to spiritual sustenance to living “Lasting Love” (her newest memoir) with her French husband of 60 years, six grown children and 15 grandchildren. A life richly lived and shared with others.”
A second former student, a journalist, recently wrote about one of his teachers at South Oak Cliff High School after the Spanish teacher and coach had died. “Ramon Arguellas’ easy going manner was a charm. He made one feel comfortable and relaxed. I’m thinking he must have been one of those individuals and tranquil souls literally interested in IT and US all. He encouraged and provoked me to learn ‘la lingua’ and to correct my backhand on the tennis court.” Haynes also observes, “The right book at the right time, a professor used to say. The same goes for mentors. Timing is everything.”
This former student also asked his daughter her thoughts about mentors. In part, she wrote, “In college during sophomore and senior years, I was an undergraduate advisor to groups of freshman kids and would help them adjust to dorm life, being away from home, and sometimes stuff like helping choose which courses to take. That was definitely not true career or academic mentoring, but I was more of a social mentor in helping them adjust to life away from home.”
My own mentor, the late Elizabeth Bowne, a novelist and communications specialist for UNICEF, began many of her writing classes with a tribute to her own mentor, the woman who guided this Georgian in writing her first novel, A Gift from the African Heart. After this book was published in 37 languages, Elizabeth told her mentor that there was no way to repay the help the New Yorker had given so freely. Her mentor replied, “Pass the lessons on; then I’ll be repaid.”
The young novelist began to conduct writing workshops where she provided individual instruction to each participant in addition to group sessions even as she continued to write. For me, these lessons were so different from any that I had encountered in a formal classroom setting, that I, too, began to share them with my students. True mentoring works that way; it becomes a never ending cycle of learning, teaching, passing on to the next generation.
Valentine’s Day has come and gone this year, but If you want to treat yourself to a most meaningful belated gift, reach out to serve as a mentor. You’ll be glad you did because you will discover that you may make a very positive difference in someone’s life.
2013
Comments