Every month on The Cultivate Project website we post an interview with an adult who demonstrates excellence in life-on-life mentoring.
This month's mentor was Brian Shoemaker, a Bible teacher at the Christian Academy of Louisville (KY). Here are some snippets from Paige Gutacker's interview with him:
Paige: How would you define mentoring?
Brian: mentoring is nothing more than empathetic teaching, walking alongside my students to understand where they are so I can gain understanding of where they need to be. This means the curriculum is a tool rather than just an end in itself. I asked one of my students recently what made a teacher a mentor. The student told me: "A mentor is someone who looks at me in the eye and doesn't look beyond me to get to the end result of a curriculum."
Paige: How did you first become an "empathetic teacher"?
Brian: When I began teaching, I thought my goal was to finish the curriculum by the end of the year. But halfway through that first year a student approached me about something in the Old Testament he was struggling with. As I worked through it with him, I began to see that what was important for this kid was not that he get an "A" on a test, but that he gain wisdom to help him with the test of life. Now my goal is to teach kids how to learn, not just how to gather information. And to do this, I have to be with the students where they are - and sometimes that means stepping out of the routine of my average day.
Paige: Tell me a story about a student that you intentionally invested in.
Brian: Last year there was a freshman in one of my classes who was a little shy and awkward in social situations. It came to my attention that he wanted to play guitar, so I asked an upperclassmen to help him at least learn some chords. That was last year. Now he's playing guitar. And the wonderful end of this story is - I'll look up at him and smile and he'll grin at me as he's playing. I was the catalyst, the bridge, through which he now has a confidence in knowing how to play.
Paige: What recommendations would you give to other Christian educators stepping into mentoring roles?
Brian: If you're going to mentor, you have to want to shepherd students. You have to love them, respect them, listen to them, walk alongside of them, and coach them. To do this well, you personally need to implement spiritual disciplines in your own life first. You have to be a model - particularly with this generation. They need to see you implement what you teach - you can't be for them what you are not yourself. It goes back to loving God first and then learning to love your students.
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The Cultivate Project enables Christian educators to master the relational skills that lead to higher student motivation, academic resilience, more positive behavior, and spiritual growth. Christian schools that have implemented the program have found significant reductions in behavior problems, significant improvement in teacher enthusiasm, and an all-around energy boost in the school environment.
Find out more here.
Blessings,
Jeff Myers, Ph.D.
President,
Passing the Baton InternationalChairman,
Summit MinistriesThe Cultivate ProjectEmail meFacebookTwitter
