Mentoring may be better

Mentoring is sometimes better than just hiring someone. It's like the difference between buying something off the shelf, and having something specially designed for you.

Let me give you an example. In a developing country, there is inevitable a shortage of teachers trained to work with the deaf. Usually it is a struggle just to cover the bare minimum of adequacy for teachers of the hearing children, much less something so complicated as teaching deaf children.

Nevertheless, a friend and I had determined that a school for the deaf was simply an essential. Where were we to get the teachers?

The fact is, we had few resources. It was our great blessing to not have the finances to hire certified teachers. At the time, we did not realize this, but in hindsight, I can only be glad it was that way.

First, the two of us began teaching. We had seven children to begin with. My co-worker did have some experience. She was fluent in Sign Language, but her teaching methods were quite limited. So from the beginning, I was mentoring her. Then, the group of students began to grow. We needed another teacher. Again, we had such limited funds, we had to hire someone who had not graduated from college. (This is common in many private schools in the country.) We trained her on the job. We had her watch us teach. Then we would put her to teaching and observe her, helping her along where she needed it. We schooled her in Sign Language, and her exposure to the signing of the children helped her develop her language skills quickly.

Each year additional teachers needed to be hired. Each year there was the need to train them both in Sign Language and in methods of teaching deaf children. All this was done on the job, because there was no other way to do it, financially.

Finally the year came that we were able to be officially recognized. The government was even going to help with some of the salaries--but only for "qualified" teachers. The well trained teachers, fluent in Sign Language, and skilled in teaching the deaf were not qualified. They would not pay them. Rather college graduates who had been certified to teach by passing a test had to be hired.

Every teacher we hired this way, was much more difficult to train. They had already ingrained in them that there was one way, and only one way to teach. It consisted of writing endless paragraphs on the board, explaining briefly, in a form the children could not possibly understand, and then having the children copy it down.

Day after day, the children were expected to copy, without the faintest understanding of what they were copying.

Mentoring teachers before they went to college was much more effective. These teachers went on to get their degrees, and will soon be taking the test for their certification, at which point they will be pronounced adequate to teach. In point of fact, they are probably the best teachers of the deaf in the entire country.

So what do you prefer?  Off the shelf, works for some things. But if you have something special, that needs to be done in special ways, you may want to consider mentoring. You can always add the college later, if it is needed.