Re: Garden Mentor Guidelines?

**A*@aol.com**

Jacki,

I'm showing my age here, but I've been doing some kind of mentoring/ tutoring 
since I was a teenager - a few decades.  Sometimes it works, other times it 
doesn't - often a matter of chemistry or the willingness of folks involved to 
communicate on a level of equality/respect. The "mother/father bountiful 
"mindset never works. The central idea is recipricocity - a sharing, i.e. 
"Taste this, ya see sometimes it works if you use a little less butter and 
stir more when you fry them onions. It's all in watching them turn color..."

Some non-gardening mentoring links, which have some interesting thoughts 
about the mentoring process: 
 <A HREF="http://www.ed.gov/pubs/YesYouCan/sect2-fsteps.html";>Yes, You Can: 
Guidelines for Mentoring Programs</A>

 <A HREF="http://www.esjc.cc.al.us/tiii/mentor.htm";>Mentoring</A>  

Did any of the folks who are complaining take notes? 

I've found that the best community garden mentors are home grown - this 
usually helps diffuse issues of difference ( i.e., college educated mentor - 
usually newly minted - meets Joe or Jill from the neighbhorhood and starts 
watering down for non-University ears the golden words of the last professor 
they had). Ask the complainers if they took notes and are willing to be 
mentors this time around.  If not, ask them to take notes this time and go 
for it next year.

Also, when you talk to the potential mentors, outside of the usual no-nos 
that they should have the common sense to avoid and you could get sued for,  
suggest that the the gems of knowledge they have are usually appreciated 
better when given as a peer and not as a pronouncement from Mt. Olympus. 

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