The 12 Powers of Mentoring

Book excerpt: This book is a story of how two teachers gave twenty students recognition for being the cause of their learning, for making the choice to learn for themselves, for being independent, capable, responsible, and powerful. It is a day-by-day description of a revolutionary five-day orientation that happened each year at the Mobile Open Classroom (MOBOC) in Los Angeles from 1971 to 1983. It is a true story of a real school (not a technical lesson plan), which (1) demonstrates timeless MOBOC concepts in action, (2) educates the reader in respectful and motivating behaviors toward middle schoolers, and (3) creates both a longing for this kind of success with teens and a sense of urgency for educational reform. It is a book for parents, educators, and activists, and extraordinarily relevant to public education today. The story opens with Chris, a student who has been kicked out of five schools, and it follows him as he is transformed by being given his personal power to learn. Like most students, those in this story believed that learning was demanded by someone else - a parent, a teacher, or some other external authority. They were not "learning for themselves," but rather for those others or for the grades. At the end of each year MOBOC students were tested on the same battery of tests used by schools across Los Angeles, and they met or exceeded the highest scores of all other schools, dispelling the fear that such a radical departure from traditional schooling and teaching will result in irresponsible behavior and low grades. In this book, Craig McEwen, MOBOC's head teacher and long time director, lays out the secrets of his pedagogic techniques. In an easy to read series of stories, he reveals how MOBOC got its students to take on responsibility for their own education while not falling into the "anything goes" pitfalls of free choice schools.