ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Peter John complements the previous one by zooming in on one crucial facet of the mentor-student relationship: the post-lesson discussion. Where Terry Atkinson focused on what mentors know about their own implicit theories, Peter John analyses in some detail the ways in which these belief systems manifest in the heat of the conversational moment. He shows how easy it is for tutor/mentor and student to ‘get across each other’: to pick up messages that may or may not be intentionally communicated, and to adopt a stance that is in the last analysis self-preservative rather than developmental. The tutors/mentors’ art, and their responsibility, is to present their enquiries and comments in such a way that the chances of this ‘closing down’ are minimised; and to be adept at repairing the relationship when it does go wrong. In defensive mode, both are convinced of their own rightness, take their judgements about each other as literal truth, and are quite unable to reflect on their contributions to the situation.
