Domain of Appreciation

Abstract

In this chapter, I discuss the conceptual roots of Appreciation as a Domain of Praxis in Mentoring. Specifically, I illustrate these roots as grounded in authentic cases, examples, excerpts, and empirical sources from preservice and in-service mentoring settings. Appreciation as a discursive activity engages the mentor in dialogue with his/her mentoring practice, as he/she reads a situation, appraises and observes pedagogical practices, and records appropriate modes of support. In each of these ‘dialogues of practice,’ mentors engage in the process of positioning themselves in relation to the particular historical, social, cultural, and institutional character of the mentoring context, while construing idiosyncratic understandings about how practices develop and can be enhanced in specific conditions, resources, and constraints. As mentors read a situation, they recognize and confront gaps between codes and norms of behavior; contemplate the physical, relational, and professional context of mentoring; typify emergent cooperative breakdowns; signify ingrained assumptions and ideologies; and take perspective by making educated conjectures and connecting the parts to the whole. As mentors appraise pedagogical practices, they reframe rigid views about effective pedagogical practices; signify contradictory and competing accountabilities; recognize role boundaries; evaluate educational interventions as rooted in moral stances; and reframe perspectives on resistances as rooted in contradictory values. As mentors observe pedagogical practices, they contemplate to build repertoires of behaviors and their underlying messages. And, as they record appropriate modes of support, they make educational construals and anticipate contradictions of interest that might be inherent in different forms of support. The sections in this chapter explore the different encounters between forms of practice and forms of positioning and construing, as they unfold in authentic exemplars of mentoring practices in a variety of educational contexts.